Three years ago, the crisis exploded in the hands of George Papandreou. It was the result, however, of many years of shameful politics. Antonis Karakousis in tovima.gr has described the national failure during the last three decades in a few paragraphs. He wrote (02.03.2013): “In 1981, Andreas Papandreou assumed power promising inter alia to “change things”. Change actually did occur, some of those promised were delivered, but most of his policy announcements remained unfulfilled or proved ineffective. A part of the electorate was surely satisfied; however Papandreou failed to boost the economy or achieve significant progress for the country.

The real change was attempted after 1985, when his economic policy had collapsed and he had to endorse that of the European Union, which provided funding and rescued the economy. Then the Stabilisation and Growth Programme developed by Costas Simitis – then Economy minister – attempted the first big steps to exercise control over public finances. That 3-year project was based on the slogan “We spend more than we produce.”

Karakousis noted: “During the first year the programme was implemented by Costas Simitis, harsh measures were decided that caused a lot of reaction. In the second year, some elements of growth started to appear. The third year of the programme was about streamlining public finances. At the end of 1987 the field was dominated by debates on the budget, taxes and tax evasion. Finally, Papandreou expelled Simitis and the crowd was satisfied because the “heartless” Minister of Finance was gone. Later on, in 1988 the scandals dominated public agenda and public finances derailed. In the elections of 1989, Papandreou maximized clientelism practices and soon after deficit’s revenge came. In early 1990, the Greek state had run out of money and started borrowing with a 27% rate in order to pay salaries and pensions.

The next effort to consolidate fiscal finances by Costas Mitsotakis was not concluded due to political reasons. Then, another effort by FinMin Alekos Papadopoulos in 1994 got lost three years later in 1997 due to populist notions that prevailed in the then leading political class. Since then all efforts undertaken were incomplete and have failed, hence today’s near-bankruptcy situation…”

A similar analogy (to include also a few more PMs not previously mentioned) can be simply put as follows: deficits – clientelism – more deficits – populism – missed opportunities – timidity – political amateurism.

For foreign technocrats and scientists, Greece is a mystery. When the working hypothesis necessarily assimilates the country’s Eurozone membership, the analysts’ despair grows even further; in their minds, disaster scenarios are almost a certainty. Of course, those Nobel laureates who promised investors the bankruptcy of Greece proved to be quite wrong. Recently, one of them was forced to admit publicly that the assessment was incorrect. But was it?

Scientifically speaking it was not wrong, since, no matter how one makes the calculations, the figures “do not add up,” despite Stournaras’ confidence that within the year, or early 2014, there will be a primary surplus. What does this mean? Nothing more than that Greece will stop borrowing money to live. What follows is the need for a rapid reduction of debt, which if not achieved via a new haircut, it requires a spectacular GDP growth over the next ten years or so.

Nobel laureates and domestic politicized economists (Stournaras, Milios, Varoufakis and others) probably acknowledge that achieving such a GDP jump is a mission impossible for a country in which the ruling party of the day considers citizens (and their occupations) as election target groups and reigns depending on the electoral cycle. Moreover, this time, growth will not come from increased consumption of indigenous buyers. This is over; credit cards with predatory interest rates, and seasonal consumer loans that in the past have fueled the market and Greek banks’ easy profits are obsolete.

Growth will emerge from serious and innovative investments that can attract quality visitors (on a seasonal or permanent basis) and produce goods and services that target foreign markets. This effort requires the use of the well-known ‘comparative advantages of the country’, and involves novelty, originality, design, and communication effectiveness.

All these are not associated with ideology (to exclude the communist fairytale). The whole case is simply a matter of efficiency, in order the country to be able to exploit its comparative advantages, which -fortunately- are largely independent from the actions of Greeks. The rest is shoddy propaganda stemming from vested interests or originating from the need for group psychotherapy within party walls, depending on anyone’s prism.

The way out of the vicious circle of deficits, failure and inefficient politics require drastic solutions. It mainly requires a large proportion of Greek politicians to decide to sacrifice themselves on the altar of crisis management.

This will be the beginning of the end of the Greek problem.

Dr. Demetris Kamaras is the Editor of Alyunaniya.com

They both assumed the leadership of their historic parties at the end of different political eras, thus both had the opportunity to enter the mainstream on their own pace and mark their way towards the top, i.e. the Premiership of the country. They both succeeded, through quite similar paths.

George Papandreou assumed the leadership of PASOK from his father’s adversary Costas Simitis who led a reformist movement that delivered much less than it promised. The latter’s landmark moment was Greece’s accession in the EMU, something that ten years later many Greeks considered a drag. Now it is clear that, although many euro area members may have doctored their statistics to fit the Eurozone dress, Greeks ended up embracing the scheme, building up our very own fallacy.

This is not of the last decade’s however. Systemic malfunctions were built back in the 1980s when Andreas Papandreou institutionalised budget deficit as a national policy. In the years that followed, all signs pointed towards a looming ending. Even the new FinMin Yannis Stournaras, when he was taught economics by legendary academic Constantine Drakatos, he already knew that there was not even a chance traditional Greek-style economic policy to prevent the national economy from taking a fall. Short periods during which the fundamentals of the economy were turning towards the positive, due to increased consumption and internal borrowing made nothing than deteriorating the misleading notion of progress.

During Karamanlis 2004-2009 governance, the countdown of this era began. Admittedly, it was the first real opportunity Greece had to change course and move away from the destructive path drawn by party politics, corruption and extreme clientelism. It was a period during which Greek economy’s tremor started; most importantly, it was a period during which Greeks lost the last remaining iota of trust towards Greek politicians.

This opportunity was lost. During the Karamanlis administration, Papandreou has been very difficult as an opposition leader, putting up strong fights against the then Prime Minister and the centre-right administration, who had adopted a minimum risk approach that turned it into a sitting duck. If Karamanlis government had a slim chance to produce tangible results, G. Papandreou’s populism killed it. That period will be recorded in Greek history as a period during which the country kept burning several billions of borrowed money, next to torched forests and Athens historical buildings that went ablaze in the 2008 riots.

Then, in October 2009 George Papandreou became Prime Minister and Antonis Samaras picked up the conservative party in ruins.

It was at that moment when the God of Greece turned George and Antonis into two sides of the same coin, in a process sometimes known as “Schumpeter’s gale.” Economic history tells us that Austrian-American economist Joseph Schumpeter adapted it from the work of Karl Marx and popularized it as a theory of economic innovation and the business cycle. At its most basic, “creative destruction” describes the way in which capitalist economic development arises out of the destruction of some prior economic order.

Both stages are essential in order to reach the end game, which in the case of Greece has to do with the drastic transformation of they way we do things in the country; economic and business mentality, social interaction and development, individual and collective responsibility and accountability.

George came in for the destruction; to fight the past, impose the concept of change the hard way; widespread pain and horizontal austerity action that shocked Greeks and made them start thinking. He brought into surface all the things Greeks used to hide under the mattresses. Neo-Hellenic illnesses strongly embedded in the daily life of citizens, amongst them what Princeton’s professor Stathis Gourgouris called “a propensity for disorder.”

To fix the Greek economy and conclude the capitalist cycle, major distortions had to go. The destruction process began based on two parametres: 1) things in Greeks’ daily life will not be the same again, since the mother-State had nothing more to give and 2) old incomes and previous generations’ benefits had to fade away to save Greece’s youth.

The process was harsh and George died (politically) in the trenches. Interim procedures were activated with Lucas Papademos stabilizing the field and Panayiotis Pikrammenos neutralizing the political passion.

Then Antonis came in for the second phase, to orchestrate the creative part, stepping on a smoother pathway, after all the reactions, political juxtaposition and pathos were tamed.

Reconstructing Greece requires the ability to synthesise necessary policies through sound leadership. In the creative destruction process, his predecessor delivered the first part and history will have its say. We need Antonis to appear creative and finish the job.

Dr. Demetris Kamaras is the Editor of AlYunaniya.com

In a book called ‘PASOK’ [Spourdalakis (ed.), 1998], it is argued that the political / electoral success of the socialist party in the 1980s relied on the fact that it managed to combine a left rhetoric, expressed through populist punch lines that sounded radical (against NATO and the then European Community), with the ability to come up with a governance competence that lasted from 1981 to 2004 (minus the 1989-1993 Mitsotakis administration interval).

Andreas Papandreou managed to combine demagogy with political realism. His legendary statement about the then European Community and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, loosely translated into “EC and NATO, both sides of the same coin” has been a major instrument of demagogy. Later on, PASOK government dismissed the anti-EC arguments that used to mobilise its supporters, started arguing for a Norway-type, special relation with the common market and finally ended up embracing the benefits of EU membership and the subsequent funds coming from the Support Frameworks.

In the last month or so, SYRIZA adopted a similar approach; it tackled May 6 election debate in a populist way, mounting the anti-austerity wave, attracting people from different political wings. Then it transformed its strong anti-EMU rhetoric into a crusade to change the EU, moving beyond the necessities of Greece, thus turning the Greek MoU debate into a debate for the future of Europe; essentially Tsipras avoids appearing specific as regards the core of Greece’s obligations, i.e. the loan agreement and the so-called MoU II. He curses Memorandum policies and promotes a “different route”, just like Andreas Papandreou used to blame the Right and promise the “third road to Socialism”.

Alexis Tsipras’ moves in the last 6 months have been quit effective. He is supported by some brainy political advisors and strategists as well as -rumour has it- Andreas Papandreou’s personal strategist Kostas Laliotis, who, while he issued an announcement to dismiss a right wing newspaper story that referred to his involvement, he appeared very generous in the way he complimented Tsipras’ close associates. It was almost as the leak was planted just to legitimize a meaningful announcement by PASOK’s enfant gâté.

Two weeks before the elections, Alexis Tsipras is turning heavier in his appearance, lowers the voice and stresses his words as an experienced leader, whose crowd keeps increasing. According to all indications, he will spend the remaining pre-election days investing on a leadership profile that will come in handy if the future of the country will be handed to him.

The climax moment could be the television debate with ND leader Antonis Samaras, that -in my opinion- could benefit the young politician, killing all hopes for the centre-right leader. But is seemed that New Democracy’s second thoughts have been wiser than the initial careless call that invited young Alexis to a beauty contest with his senior ND counterpart.

Dr. Demetris Kamaras is the Editor of AlYunaniya.com 

The illusion that Greece can go forward through this oxymoron constitutes the SYRIZA vote.

Traditionally, the European left rhetoric in Greece has been more left than about Europe. Pure leftish arguments that most Greeks loathe in terms of their consequences on the real economy and people’s individualism have been the main reason Tsipras’ party remained for nearly a decade close to the 3% Parliament threshold, marking in a few votes the difference between political obscurity and House representation.

Dissatisfied, indignant Greek voters were up for grabs throughout the last two years, coming from different political parties, sharing the same anti-MoU feeling. SYRIZA leader managed to utilise a clever strategy, adopting centre-left arguments that sounded positive even to ND voters who were orphaned when Samaras vehemently shifted towards the right. On the 6th of May 37% of PASOK and 13% of ND voters subscribed to Tsipras’ rhetoric, once again proving that in Greece, voters do not pay attention to programmatic documents and political intentions. Admittedly so, no one ever imagined that SYRIZA could turn into a government partner.

A series of factors led to the destruction of the centre-right. The damage for ND began when party leadership decided to vote against the first MoU in 2010, alienating the centrist vote, instead of staying in the pragmatist side of politics, pushing for changes and innovative, reformist alternatives, especially when George Papandreou adopted the easy way out, namely milking salary earners and pensioners.

Instead of staying in the game, dealing with hardcore politics, ND leadership ordered party people to hit the streets, miserably antagonizing leftist unionists who used to rally for a living. The lack of mainstream political agenda left the centre-right with no alternative than to start pushing for snap elections through nihilism and imitations of leftish activism tactics. A few years later, when PASOK and George Papandreou succumbed to the huge social and political pressure and Lucas Papademos took over, ND had to give in and sign the MoU II, to avoid taking the blame for the country’s collapse. Then, after the expulsion of a group of MPs who remained hooked to the populist view, to massage their constituencies, the party lost the popular vote that followed Panos Kammenos in a daring, albeit fruitless quest towards the patriotic right. On May 6, ND reached the bottom of the centre-right dynamics, in a down-curve that began from 45.3% in 2004, to 41.8% in 2007, down to 33.5% in 2009 to a humiliating 18.8% in 2012.

PASOK, on the other hand is trying to survive the 13.2% result (from almost 44% in 2009), putting together all sorts of party casts, while pushing older executives to step down with decency. The centre-left party has suffered the Papandreou administration that failed to tame PASOK’s populist soul. However, what was not clearly foreseen back then was that after its victory against George, the populist mass was determined to seek for the next best roof in the socialist neighborhood, namely Alexis Tsipras.

This is not surprising, since PASOK has always been a formation of different people of unclear ideological background, united by their common thirst for power and the benefits that stemmed out of it.

In the prosperity years, generous budgets of all sorts kept everyone focused on the primary task, i.e. to maintain control of the state apparatus and burse. As soon as the money run out, the horde scattered, following separate roots. These days, SYRIZA leadership is the next best option that resembles the old, populist PASOK; even some of the old Andreas Papandreou’s charisma, some say. At the same time, SYRIZA is the only harbor for those who continue to see the state as a milking cow.

Considering also that, despite the drama, Greece is still at the beginning of a long reformist journey, statists opposing this path like to think they have a chance to stop it. They are assisted by a significant number of middle and lower class households, which are hit by the austerity measures and hope to minimize their losses, by scraping the MoU recipe.

Most of the aforementioned groups see their degrading -and to a great extent corrupted- fields of work, or protected professions or black economy transactions gravely threatened by the reform process.

On June 17, the same groups are preparing to vote against their future. In the minds of Europeans, this is a mindless vote. But for those who understand the Greek psyche, it is a last attempt to rescue an old, degraded and widely spread micro world, seconds before its violent descent down the steepest cliff of the country’s modern economic history.

Dr. Demetris Kamaras is the Editor of AlYunaniya.com

This is clearly reflected in the campaigns of the two major parties that focused on branding techniques, putting the two politicians in the middle of their messaging systems. As specialists in both parties missed the opportunity to offset austerity measures by suggesting policies that could improve every daily life of citizens, so did campaign managers who decided to focus on ‘governmentability’ and ignore simple solutions that citizens could keep in their minds when they will approach the ballot box.

In this respect, current election campaigns seem to aim at the survival of the old, presenting parties engaged in a crisis-generated power game. They focus on party leaders, instead of issues and they still use old tools to deal with an unprecedented situation. What’s more, they continue to resist modernisation of party structure and culture.

Analysing the persuasion system adopted during the pre-election period, certain things are more than evident; for instance: bespoke solutions for citizens’ real problems remain absent from the campaigns of major parties; moreover, analysis of policies misses anecdotes and case studies, and has no reference to specific results.

Campaigns tend to focus more on the need for a mandate, instead of adopting honest and engaging approach. “Give me strength to change everything”, says ND leader Antonis Samaras, echoing the exact wording of George Papandreou in 2009. Furthermore, the mobilisation of voters is still attempted through open rallies, whereas populism and conspiracy theories thrived.

According to experienced pollsters, the situation three days before the elections has not changed as compared with the trends explored before the ban of the opinion polls. There are no differences in the election trends. There is a large figure of undecided voters, around 30%, of whom only a third feel they have to choose between the two major parties. The bulk majority is still looking for a small party to cast their votes; and this time, their options are many.

Strong government or non-governance? Pollsters agree that the two major parties have failed to push this dilemma to voters. ND and PASOK need at least 38% of the cumulative vote to secure 151 seats in Parliament. If they fail to reach this minimum, conventional thinking says a real political crisis could follow that might lead to the deconstruction of political parties, leadership change and a period of turmoil. Only one opinion poll company supports this scenario so far.

In a closed session today, an experienced pollster described the following scenario: New Democracy wins the election and Samaras is handed the mandate; when he asks Venizelos for PASOK party’s support to form a coalition, the Socialists veto the Samaras Premiership. Then the mandate changes hands and Venizelos asks ND for support, suggesting a third person from the centre-right field to lead the government. This person’s identity could raise some interesting speculation. All sorts of negotiations depend on the dynamics that will be formulated by the difference between ND and PASOK and the performance of the smaller parties.

Pollsters agree also that a third political force should emerge to support a coalition between ND and PASOK. As an analyst put it, “one of the most bizarre things in this election is the lack of cooperation between Drasi (Stephanos Manos) and Democratic Alliance (Dora Bakoyannis). If an agreement was reached, they would surely have entered Parliament and would constitute an effective arbitrator in a ND-PASOK government scheme, much better than the role LAOS played in the Papademos government.

On May 6, two distinct electorate bodies in terms of age will appear over the ballot box. 75% of people under 45 of age will vote elsewhere but the two major parties, next to 40% of the people over the age of 50 that are expected to do the same.

This attitude more or less connotes the future of major political parties in Greece. It is no different than that of the newspaper readers that grow old with their favorite newspapers and when they die, are not replaced, since the next generation is already online.

The 2-party system seems unable to survive May 6^thwith dignity. Unless they decide to change the way they practice politics.

Dr. Demetris Kamaras is the Editor of AlYunaniya.com