7 political leaders without anything to say
Date posted: September 9, 2015
Last night (September 9th), the first debate between the political leaders in Greece took place in national television. The debates in Greece are completely different from the ones you might have seen in countries like USA or UK, Germany, and others. The political leaders don’t talk to each other, but they only answering the questions from the journalists. In reality, there is no any kind of debate between them. Also in most cases their answer doesn’t have to do anything with the question. They can answer anything that they want in their 1 minute and 30 seconds.
So it wasn’t a big surprise to many Greeks, how useless was this debate we saw last night. It was more interesting and more entertaining to see the comments on social media than the debate itself. Mr Tsipras tried to convince the people that he still is a rebel, looking to change things in Europe, but this time by following what Europe is telling him to do. So rebellious!
On the other hand we saw the leader of the second biggest party, Mr Meimarakis, attacking Mr Tsipras using an everyday language but at the same time he was assuring everyone that if needed he will cooperate with Tsipras in order to form a government.
Mr Lafazins, the leader of the new political party “Popular Unity” fell to the trap that most journalists had set up for him. Mr Lafazanis’ party is supporting the idea of exiting the eurozone and return to the national currency. This is a case which cannot be discussed in 1 minute and 30 seconds. You need some time in order to explain your arguments, and Mr Lafazanis didn’t have that luxury of time.
We also had Mr Theodorakis, the leader of ‘The River’. An ex-journalist who created his political party just some months ago. He places himself on the left wing, but at the same time he is supporting many liberal policies, like privatizations, selling off the country’s assets and many more. The latest polls are showing him very low around 4.5% and there is a great possibility to go even lower.
There are no comments about the Communist leader. The Communist party in Greece in the last decades is just like someone who you meet every day on the train, but you don’t really want to know more. It’s a political party which doesn’t have to offer anything. It’s a pity because this party fought for an independent Greece and now there is no reason for someone to vote it.
Fofi Genimata the leader of PASOK seems like a memory from the past. PASOK used to have around 40% of the votes in Greece and now if they receive more than 4% will be a miracle. Fofi couldn’t say a lot as her political party is one of the major reasons for today’s economic chaos in Greece. Everyone in PASOK is praying to be in the next parliament. Otherwise, it will mean the end for this political party.
Last but not least Panos Kammenos, the second half of the previous government. Panos Kammenos just some hours before the Greek government accept the terms of the creditors, he was yelling in the Greek parliament that he will never sign a memorandum like the previous ones. He even said that he will resign if he fails. Just some hours later the Greek government accepted all of the creditors’ terms.
So it is pretty obvious that we couldn’t expect anything from last night’s debate. We didn’t learn anything new, we didn’t understand how can we get our country out of the crisis, but most of all we didn’t find our new hope. Some months ago Alexis Tsipras had that glow of the new, of the hope which is coming. Today, after his u-turn, all of the political leaders seems the same. Same faces, same ideologies, no any new idea, no hope.
Peter Charitopoulos
