A civilized election campaign
One of the best things that we have seen in this pre-election period is a dramatic drop in the number of posters stuck to telephone poles and on the walls of buildings, billboards along the streets, fliers littering the ground and campaign cars going from neighborhood to neighborhood blaring out party slogans from megaphones attached to their roofs. The lack of campaign litter and noise is truly refreshing. This streamlining or downsizing of campaign material may have to do with the fact that the usual people who bankroll election drives are feeling the pinch of the economic crisis and shelling out less cash. Whatever the reason, however, the result is that the quality of our political culture has benefited, while we are also seeing political parties agreeing to cut back on campaign costs. The relatively quiet campaign period has awakened the hope that maybe one day in Greece we will experience elections as our European peers do, without the grandstanding, passionate speeches from balconies to crowds of thousands and other antics that we have become so accustomed to.
