Party leaders’ assets in the public eye
We don’t know who leaked the 15-page document listing the assets of former SYRIZA chief Stefanos Kasselakis, which was published by the Efimerida ton Syntakton newspaper on Tuesday. We’re also having trouble understanding the reaction of Manolis Kapnisakis, the director of the ex-party leader’s office. “The fact that the presidency of SYRIZA’s central committee violated Stefanos Kasselakis’ privacy by publishing information about his ‘pothen esches’ [an annual declaration of wealth for public figures] is unacceptable and condemnable,” he said. “Such a leak, beyond the ethical dimension, raised serious questions about privacy protection and transparency, principles that the party claims to uphold.”
His comments seem rather odd. Given how Kasselakis himself advertised his pothen esches declaration on giant screens during his pre-election campaign, why was Kapnisakis so bothered about a printout on paper? Unless, as the newspaper notes, the declaration on the giant screen was different to that which was submitted for inspection to the relevant authority. In that event, we are talking about the typical hypocrisy of all politicians when it comes to so-called personal data.
When a politician goes around waving his wealth declaration in public, journalists have a duty to investigate whether what it claims is true
We have often argued that public figures who enjoy the limelight, celebrities if you will, cannot invoke breaches of their privacy when they use such “breaches” for their own benefit. We have noted, for example, that when a politician makes frequent public appearances with his or her spouse, showing off the “good” aspects of their private life (according to social norms), and a journalist discovers that not everything in the garden is rosy and there’s a lover lurking in the bushes, invoking privacy is sheer hypocrisy. To put it bluntly, when a politician publishes a flier showing himself posing with his happy family, the voter has just as much right to know whether it is just a facade as whether the promises he makes are sincere. Likewise, when a politician goes around waving his wealth declaration in public, journalists have a duty to investigate whether what it claims is true.
And here’s another thing with these pothen esches declarations. They were instituted in 1964 as a voluntary waiving of privacy by public figures in order to “protect the honor of the political world.” If this institution, like so many others in Greece, has become a joke, then they ought to feel duty-bound to inform citizens how much money they had when they entered politics and how much they have at the door out – the citizens, not the parties’ politburos.
