Need for responsible leadership

Greece is bankrupt and functioning only by virtue of the life-support mechanism provided by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. In order to continue functioning, however, it has to honor the agreements it signed in the bailout memorandum, which foresees reforms that are certainly harsh but also necessary and have been for the past 20 years as no administration has dared to impose them. The problem lies in the fact that on the one hand the government and the ruling PASOK party are behaving as though they have a gun to their heads and, on the other, New Democracy, the main opposition party, is refusing to behave like the conservative power it purports to be. The people are therefore looking at a political leadership that is cowering in fear at a time when they need to see a strong hand at the helm of the country – a government that will defend what needs to be done and an opposition that will stop behaving like a backbench naysayer.