Democracy…

It is believed to be a political government carried out either directly by the people or by means of elected representatives of the people. It has origins from Ancient Greece when the people of Athens could gather, vote and decide on their fate. All citizens were eligible to speak and vote in the Assembly, which set the laws of the city-state.

Since then, of course, so many things have changed. Now, contemporary Greece might appear (?) as a democratic country but it appears to be far from one. Yesterday the Parliament voted for the new measures to be used for the elimination of the national debt. Those new measures were agreed with the Eurozone leaders and the IMF.

In theory, all 300 of our MPs should vote according to what they believe. In my delusional naïve mind, when a crisis like that occurs, micro politics should be put aside and everybody should vote according to what they think is for the common good! That’s what I thought democracy meant.

The opposition party before the vote just declared its disagreement on the measures proposed by the government (as expected) without however proposing a different solution. They simply mentioned which parts of the new legislation they don’t like and which parts they do like. The leader of that party simply announced his disapproval and forced all opposition members to vote against them.

Both major political parties decided on a common policy that all of their members should follow. All government MPs should vote in favor of the measures agreed and all members of the rival party against them. Any MPs not voting what their party leader declared would be erased from the party, as simple as that!

One of the major members of the opposition voted pro the measures and was removed from the party. Ntora Mpakogianni was the second runner for the leadership of the opposition party after the last elections. She and the current leader of the party do not get along and strongly disagree on every possible thing. I am not sure whether she simply voted so that she’d be removed to form her own political party. Apart from her, four members of the Parliament belonging to the government voted against the announced measures and were also removed.

I do not see how that is called democracy…

The Parliament

In the meantime, four people were brutally murdered outside the Parliament, when strikes hit the capital. Three of them (one pregnant woman) were caught in a fire started by fire bombs (Molotov) in a bank in central Athens and another was burnt by anarchists in the middle of the street. The latter incident was firstly created by accident when a guy caught fire from a Molotov bomb. Some people tried to help him to put out the fire, but one of the people there in the demonstration simply threw petrol on him. While that was taking place in the streets, on the television news the far left winged party leader and the far right party leader were arguing about whether the murderer with the petrol was a communist or a fascist, because it is far more important to find his political views (apparently).

During the same demonstrations on Wednesday, the fourth floor of one of the buildings of the Financial Ministry was burnt. In that floor, all the governmental records of the later state investigation on tax evaders were stored but unfortunately destroyed. How fortunate for some…

The thing is that most people accept the need of extra measures. They know about the crisis and they accept that there is nothing else to be done. However, they are so frustrated and angry that no politician accepts any responsibility. The see their income being diminished, goods becoming more expensive in a day and they don’t know how long this will last.

The situation is so tragic that it became comic…

Joke:
What’s common between a turkey and a Greek?
They don’t know if they’ll survive till Christmas