Out with the old, in with the old
We knew that the memorandum outlining the agreement between Greece, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund for a financial bailout would serve as an ideological catalyst. Events in other countries that have found themselves under the asphyxiating «supervision» of the IMF have been a good indication that, under such circumstances, the political landscape cannot remain the same for long. Within the first six months that the memorandum has been in effect, Greece has seen political parties shaken to their cores, along with a rise in the number of independent MPs and the foundations laid for the creation of new parties as well. We have also seen a rise in calls for a government made up of nonelected officials, who do not draw their legitimacy from the popular vote (and then we wonder at the percentage of people who abstained from voting in this month’s local elections). We, in contrast, as a manipulated sociopolitical body, will simply know that they are chosen because of their shining light. One product of the memorandum – among other sources, as the conflict between the Mitsotakis camp and the Samaras camp has been raging for years within the ranks of New Democracy – is Dora Bakoyannis’s «Democratic Alliance.» Who comprises the alliance is something that remains to be clarified, though we did get some idea from footage from the party’s inauguration, showing us the familiar faces of certain former ND and PASOK MPs who can hardly been seen as untouchable. Almost wholly comprising the Old Guard, it has already been firmly established that the new party will revolve around its leader. There was nothing original about Bakoyannis proclaiming her party to be, in fact, a movement – an exorcism. Back in the day, Dimitris Avramopoulos had also declared his party to be a movement, even though it was merely a vehicle for his personal ambitions, especially given how quickly it ceased to exist. Andreas Papandreou had also called PASOK a movement but, apart from his firm belief in this, he was also basing his proclamation on the party’s past. At the end of the day, however, if slogans could change the state of things, we would already be living in bliss in a world very different from that built by those who shared power at its highest level, among them Dora Bakoyannis.
