An unrepentant party
Given the country’s fall from grace over the last eight years, there is clearly nothing to be gained by digging up the past or by deferring blame for the country’s bankruptcy exclusively to one’s rivals.
The publication of a report sent by Bank of Greece officials to the then governor Giorgos Provopoulos about the country’s financial situation in 2009 was used by PASOK to “vindicate” itself and to point the finger of blame at the government of New Democracy and then prime minister Costas Karamanlis as being wholly responsible for the financial collapse.
Relevant ND officials at the time provided responses to the accusation and therefore there is no need to repeat them.
Besides, the financial situation was known to the then PASOK president George Papandreou and his close associates when they irresponsibly made so many promises in order to win the elections at the time. Because of this they are not innocent of the crime.
However, Greece’s situation does not strictly concern the mismanagement of the country’s finances. From its first appearance on the Greek political stage, PASOK functioned as a violent force of change and as an extreme party that challenged the establishment to such a degree that the communist KKE party was, in comparison, dubbed as “moderate.”
Despite all the profound rhetoric, PASOK was the expression of the most despicable form of petty bourgeoise radicalism – the most dangerous thing that can appear on the political stage of any country. At some point, the radical petty-bourgeois became the new “urban class” of Greece which wastefully squandered public money and eventually led us to bankruptcy.
With its rise to power in 1981 and the gradual, tragic, mutation of the conservatives, the major problem that emerged was that PASOK’s mentality and demeanor was transplanted to Greek society and to New Democracy. The reason why the New Democracy government of Constantine Mitsotakis failed in the early 90s was that the party, and its voters, acquired PASOK characteristics, copying the “recipe for success” of Andreas Papandreou (PASOK’s founder and first leader). In other words we became the mirror image of our rivals.
The coalition government formed in 2012 between conservative prime minister Antonis Samaras and PASOK leader at the time Evangelos Venizelos gave the impression that old rivalries had been set aside and consensus had been reached for the sake of Greece’s salvation.
However, the behavior of “new” PASOK dismissed these delusions. They are simply unrepentant.
