The critical month of May

Expressing the citizens’ desire for continuity or change and their judgment, elections are always crucial in a democracy. The elections taking place in Greece and Turkey this month, however, are especially so. The Turkish polls on May 14 represent a clash between two different worlds. As much as we may want to judge our neighbor on the basis of the degree of aggression it shows toward Greece, the race between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his rivals is, essentially, a clash between authoritarianism and democracy. If Erdogan wins, Turkey will find itself on the road to dictatorship. If he loses, the new president and the government will face enormous challenges – both in dismantling the regime he has established, as well as in dealing with the significant economic and diplomatic difficulties he leaves behind. Either way, Turkey will go through a difficult stretch of an uncertain length and no one can predict what the consequences will be for the country itself or for its neighbors.

The problem here is the fact that our politicians have not shown the virtues that would allow the system to achieve stability via cooperation 

While Greece will be directly affected by developments in Turkey, our national elections, a week later, are equally important, albeit for different reasons. Democracy is not at stake here. What will be judged is the maturity, flexibility and sense of responsibility of those heading the political parties and the democratic institutions, as well as to what extent citizens want a change of policy via stability or hope for miracles through turbulence. (Let us applaud the safety valve introduced by the Kyriakos Mitsotakis government: the reintroduction of the system of simple proportional representation will allow us to experience the adventure of failing to form a government, without, however, coming to the impasse that Bulgaria has hit, where five electoral races in two years have yet to produce a viable outcome.)

The problem here is not the system of simple proportional representation, which reflects the disparate positions and ideas in politics and society, so much as the fact that our politicians have not shown the virtues that would allow the system to achieve stability via cooperation. The positions being adopted by the political parties – less than three weeks before voters go to the polls – tell us as much. While governing New Democracy has a program and leaves a significant legacy of successes, as well as failures and shadows that require investigation, the focus of attention is not on the next government’s policy as much as it is on a desire for confrontation and on how each party deals with the period in between the two rounds of voting. The onus for finding solutions thus falls on the citizens and the institutions – on every voter, on the Constitution and on the president of the republic. We will first find out which way society is leaning, and then who will be governing us.