Is there room for hope?

Despite the daily rise in tension and polarization, we need to be optimistic. But can we hope that after the coming elections things will not be as bad as today’s politics predict? Can we look forward not to instability and uncertainty but towards a newfound spirit of consensus, so that the country can make progress? 

A positive factor is that the three largest parties, those that will determine developments after the elections, do not have serious differences as to Greece’s place in the world. 

But the problem that limits the country’s prospects is that which occupies the parties and constitutes the basis of their disputes – the mentality which dominates the political scene. This includes the parties’ inability to work together, fear of the political cost of necessary decisions, blind faith in luck (the belief that all will be fine even if we are unprepared), exploitation of state institutions to the party’s benefit, tolerance for a lack of responsibility, for the lack of discipline, and, generally, for the promotion of the interests of special groups and individuals, at society’s expense. 

In this climate, the parties accuse each other either of trying to stir things up or of extreme pandering to their clientele (as they all do, to some degree). 

New Democracy did much that it promised in its program, but it gave in to many weaknesses. Now it must persuade skeptical citizens that it can improve the country. 

SYRIZA, on the other hand, as if it did not have a reality check when it was in power, is waving the banners of utopia, criticizing anyone who seems to fall short. 

PASOK is terrified of saying anything about its own policy, lest this have a political cost. The general sense of distrust encourages extreme positions and opportunism. 

So, what can we hope for? For a long time, it has been clear that society’s needs, the thinking of many citizens, differ greatly from the political parties’ needs and mentality. Elections with the simple proportional system will lead to a dead end, as the 2015 referendum did. Because we wake up only when our backs are against the wall, let us hope that, under pressure from citizens, our politicians will not waste time before putting the good of the country before party and personal interests. Most likely we will experience a great scare before that.