Silence, Mr Mayor
A week has passed since Athens Mayor and former party leader Dimitris Avramopoulos announced his decision to suspend the operation of his Free Citizens’ Movement, which he founded about a year ago in order to «create a rupture in the country’s worn-out two-party system.» One would have expected that this political failure would have taught Avramopoulos – a true media star – a lesson. Mistakes are made to be corrected, as long as the person who makes them attains self-knowledge. Avramopoulos was neither the first nor the last politician to attempt to leave the major party fold. Others, some of them more significant political figures, attempted the same thing before him, often under more favorable circumstances, only to fail as well… Avramopoulos should have studied the case of current President Costis Stephanopoulos. When the latter realized that his DIANNA party had no future, he quietly withdrew without any backstage moves. Subsequent developments vindicated him: Stephanopoulos is today the country’s most popular and reliable politician. It seems that Avramopoulos has not yet managed to free himself of the various counselors who turned the mayor’s head and led him into the present situation. For what would be wiser for a politician who has acknowledged the bankruptcy of his ideas in public than choosing a long period of silence? Silence, especially in politics, is necessary when conditions call for it…
