I hope the voters don’t regret their decision
If you feel like the situation in Greece today has gotten worse than you could have ever imagined, you are not alone. You have plenty of company. The news emerging in the wake of the elections is that the political earthquake that struck caused the majority to shift from the center of the political spectrum, where it was rooted for decades, to the extremes. Voters abandoned the conservatives and socialists and opted for the far left and far right. I understand the people’s anger. However, such sudden political shifts have never helped to make things better. On the contrary, they gave rise to such major social clashes that they made the initial causes of anger seem like a joke. Yesterday, Greece relived an election day like October 18, 1981. Back then, the people were sold on a promise of Change, and the redistribution of national wealth from the haves to the have-nots, from the privileged to the non-privileged. Instead of giving emphasis to developing new sources of wealth to strengthen the have-nots, the government simply redistributed the existing wealth, new wealth was not produced, and monies coming in from EU grants and loans were handed out irresponsibly. Today, the political furor that arose centered on the memorandum. The people want to rid themselves of the austerity measures that are rapidly decreasing their standard of living. As a result, the anti-memorandum parties soared to victory and the pro-memorandum parties – especially the socialists – were annihilated. Today, the fate of the nation is in the hands of people who are not ready for the roles they will have to take on. Greek voters proved to be angrier than what they appeared to be. They did not organize big demonstrations, make a commotion, or cause property damages. They kept all their anger inside of them and manifested it with their vote. It was a vote of anger, and therefore a vote wrongly cast. It was a vote to punish, but not one to handle the problems facing the country. That is why they are setting themselves up for a letdown tomorrow. Perhaps even a major one. Europe and the IMF are not about to renegotiate the terms of the memorandum, and there is a real risk that Greece is going to miss its next tranche of bailout money. And then the public workers won’t be paid…Nor will the pensioners get their pensions. And what will happen next? The only recourse left will be to abandon the euro. And then the people will blame the politicians for letting things get this bad…
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