Archive note: This text comes from the old archive of Nomika Epilekta and is carefully preserved for historical and informational reading.

In the end, what the party shops wanted happened. Second elections were held within a very short period and almost the same results emerged.

Instead of the professional politicians joining their forces and throwing themselves into the struggle to support the people, correcting the errors and failures of the decades that had passed, they spent themselves on foolish confrontations, while the situation keeps worsening and each of us sees his income evaporating.

In the period between 06.05.2012 and 17.06.2012, between the two futile electoral contests, we heard the familiar chatterers of politics refer to trivialities and, with their cockfights, promise the moon and stars, threaten the globe, the Germans and the “moneylenders,” and spread through the media a multitude of incoherences and bluster.

First and foremost in the contest of mutual destruction were the well-known foul-mouthed figures of SYRIZA, ND (mainly the recent transfers) and the democratically clumsy party, although in the latter one can distinguish one or two serious people.

The Stalinist party offered no new ideas because it chewed over the familiar attacks on capital, plutocracy, the European Union, imperialism, the bourgeois class and the demonized entrepreneurs.

A small break that disrupted the routine of appearances by Dinopoulos, Manolis and Kammenos was provided by the insignificant incident, broadcast and rebroadcast on television, between the representative of the national-socialist splinter group, the former adviser of Tsochatzopoulos and the fierce journalist who is always right.

The worthless episode of the extreme clash among the three party protagonists, with the presence of the ND representative, a specialist in legal opinions, and with the elder journalist of populism as coordinator, overshadowed the country’s economic hardship, the shortage of medicines, the closing of schools, the attacks by the Turks, the swelling of unemployment and, above all, the victims of criminals, the suicides and the disgrace of new appointments by the embittered caretaker government of special purpose.

The voters preferred the parties known for their incompetence and did not experiment by electing other politicians who were judged even more incompetent and dangerous.

Without delay a government was formed under the leader of ND, with the support of PASOK and Kouvelis, and it immediately got to work.

The first concern of the new government was not to deal with the acute economic crisis that is worsening, nor with the extreme criminality whose victims are multiplying.

The government, that is, the leader of the first party, after freely choosing his subordinates, known from the past for their incompetence and arrogance, hurried to appoint stealthily as many as possible through lightning procedures, adding still more sinecures to the tens of thousands appointed by the caretaker government. Let borrowed money and the moneylenders be well, so that the idle may be paid.

As an exception, the Ministry of Justice was taken over by a modest man, Kouvelis’s choice, while in the Ministry of Public Order (“citizen protection”) one of the failed former ministers of justice was installed.

Consequently, we may say that we have a government of “more of the same.” It is made up of people who do not inspire trust. Of course, trust is not inspired either by the extremists who moved into the opposition, both major and minor.

Even so, we can hope, not only because hope dies last, but also because we have no more to lose.

Already the unemployed have far exceeded one million; the incoming Muslims are counted in millions and are not decreasing; deaths caused by criminal gangs have become routine, along with suicides; taxes wipe out the properties that remain, with the exception of the modern black marketeers who, like cockroaches, are not exterminated (now they gather gold to give ballast to their shrouds); and the chatter of reckless “politicians” who are out of place and out of time intensifies.

We base hope on a few faint rays of light escaping through the murky darkness. These rays may become a bright torrent, perhaps a torrent of fire.

We can speak of hope even merely on hearing that the prime minister with weak eyesight imposed a 30% reduction in the salaries of his own circle. It is a good beginning. Let us acknowledge that. Provided that it continues. And for that reason we hope and watch.

Emmanouil Papadakis