Actual Greece - idiosyncrasies to economial and social crisis

Trying to figure out the actual context in Greece in order to discover a little bit more about the reasons that led to the economical and the social crisis that spreads all over this nation, I found out a characteristic that may contribute for this emergency. 

In fact, Greece is known mainly by its crucial contribution to the birth of the Democratic policy. It was in 508 AC in Athens that Democracy was born as an alternative to the regime in force, Tyranny. Clístines proposed some new reforms that allowed one vote by citizen in regular assemblies concerning public affairs. It was also created a council formed by 500 members, assigned each year, whose age was never below thirty and that nobody could participate more than twice in a life.  This assembly was called Bulé.

 Well, this is actually a huge change that caused a great revolution in the world. This political regime is the most copied around the world and all over the years, suffering a natural evolution.

 Though, analyzing deeply actual Greece, democracy is not what occurs in the present. I mean, off course the political regime is a democratic one, nevertheless, power is shared between 3 clans, during the last century. Greece does not respect its extremely valuable heritance.  These clans have such a deep influence among political parties and its members reach to achieve important roles through paths previously defined.

These clans have fought against Nazis during the resistance against Germany but ran the nation into debt!!   

Let’s take a look on these clans and discover who they are: Papandreau – Karamanlis – Mitsotakis.

Papandreou – Greece has known three generations from this clan: Georgios, Andreas, and George. Georgios found the Papandreou dynasty and served the country as prime-minister three terms. He played an important role against the pro-German king Constantine I. He was exiled and was member of the government-in-exile from Egypt, during the German occupation in World War II.  

Andreas, his son, dominated the Greek democracy of the second half oh XX century. After the end of the Military Dictatorship he led and found the party PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement). Andreas, shown, at some stage of his life, connivance with Trotski ideas and thus he has been persecuted and detained by the political police. By influence of his father, he has been freed and moved to USA on exile in 1939.Andreas has also designated his son as State’s Sub secretary of Culture. Andreas served his country 2 terms as Prime-minister in 1981 and 89.

Precisely in 1989 he was accused of corruption, but in the end he was found to guilty due mainly to the rhetoric of his young advocate, Evangelos Venizelos. Then, Andreas included Venizelos in the list of the candidates for deputies from the PASOK. And when he was elected Prime-Minister for the second term, he designated as well Venizelos as official spokesman of the Government.

George, his education was made in the USA, England, Sweden and Canada and has a degree in Sociology. He returned to Greece with his father, in 1974, after the restoration of Democracy.

He is commonly considered not as talented as his grandfather and father were and had to face the problems his father helped to create:  a gigantic STATE full of privileges.

 

 

 

 

Karamanlis- is the second clan in the ranking of those who gave Greece Prime-Ministers and Presidents. This clan has created the political party New Democracy. His patriarch, Constantine,won the 1974 elections and became the first democratic leader after the regime of the colonels.  Between 2004 and 2009, Kostas Karamanlis was the Prime-Minister when Greece falsified its Public Account in Brussels, provoking anticipated elections.

 

 

 

 

Mitsotakis – The patriarch Constantine, studied Law and Economics in Athens and fought against Nazis during the Greek resistance against German occupation of Crete. Because of his active participation on the resistance, he was twice captured and condemned to death, but he fled. He is also nephew of Eleftherios Vanizelos, Prime-Minister between the 2 World Wars and that named the Athens airport.  His son Kyriakos and daughter Dora have already some political activity.

 

 

 

 

Samaras (emerging clan) – Amtonis Samaras, MBA in Harvard, is the current leader of the New Democracy, and aims to conquest the power in 2012, standing against the proposals from Papandreaou. He is also grandson of a former Greek Prime-Minister during the 30s, Alexandros Zanas and nephew of a former ex-deputy.  He knows very well his actual rival, George Papandreou as both shared room during their studies in the USA, in Amherst. He is considered as very inflexible and, in the past, provoked the fall of a New Democracy government after his own dismissal as Foreign Affairs Minister!

 

 

 

 

After reading these different cases above, now I understand that Greece does not need only an economical treatment to solve its Public Account (raising funds and facing the debt) but also a deep analysis and an insight concerning power ant its relations. In fact, during the last century, these clans that shared power, profited of its influence to support relatives and help them to follow a political career. In the end, now we found out that Greece has a huge State organism full of privileges that harm its own economy. A new revolution may arise and the type of Government must be reconsidered or, at least improved, so that politicians and leaders may be forbidden to leave an office and then organisms indebted.