This might be explained by the fact that New Democracy and the Communists both won more votes than they had in last year’s general election, while PASOK, often heading left-wing coalitions, picked up more victories. Whether the average voter, as he cast his ballot, had his mind on the government’s economic and foreign policies or on the number of rubbish bins which had been locally installed in the last four years, seemed to be largely a matter of opinion.
In Athens, on the first round, incumbent PASOK mayor Dimitris Beis ran barely one thousand votes ahead of New Democracy, a difference of less than one half of one percent of all the ballots cast. KKE’s Vassilis Ephraimidis received over 18 percent of the total vote, 2 percent more than Mikis Theodorakis won in the 1978 municipal elections and 8 percent more than the Communist vote last year.
The general ambiguity of the elections might be epitomized by the word aliaghi, the most hallowed of PASOK’s slogans last year. Now with PASOK in power, however, this battle cry could logically mean changing again, and, indeed, the word did cross party lines, in Athens at least, where Mr. Ephraimidis made it his slogan.
Most parties tended to look upon Athens as a patient in delicate health, Mr. Beis promised to make way for a healthy, more humanized metropolis while Mr. Tzannetakis’ “new breath” conjured up the image of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Only Virginia Tsouderou, the Democratic Socialist candidate, followed an opposite tack. Not beating about the urban bush, she stated flatly that what Athens needed was a fist, thus showing who was wearing the pants in this election. As she received only three percent of the vote, however, while aiming at ten percent, it appears the Athens’ answer to Margaret Thatcher might have more effectively employed the Florence Nightingale touch. Unperturbed by the results, Mrs, Tsouderou pointed out in an interview that Mitterand lost many elections but became at last President of France.
As all the candidates were pursuing an anti-rubbish campaign, the election period was thankfully far less littered than in previous years. With a minimum of confetti and feuilles volantes, the slogans took to the sky with cloth banners and streamers criss-crossing avenues and billowing οve r squ are s, giving the city the cheerful look of the annual regatta at Cowes. The only major impediments in these elections were caused by incumbent mayors, who, during the campaign, were suddenly inspired to take up such vigorous public works on the roads that drivers had difficulty getting to their polling booths.
In Chase of the Red Sea
The discovery that 22 tons of hashish and half a ton of heroin had been jettisoned in the southern Ionian Sea late in September, and that hundreds of packets were being washed up pn beaches near Pylos, set off a sea-air search comparable to the pursuit of the Bismark, during World War II.
The cargo had been dumped by the crew of the sailing vessel Doris when they discovered that Greek authorities had been tipped off with information provided by Interpol. Doris left Lebanon on September 18, was sighted near Kythera three days later, was eventually intercepted by a Greek destroyer in the Ionian Sea and impounded at Corfu. The German captain was arrested along with the crew. Most of the haul of narcotics, however, had been thrown overboard, or transferred to a private yacht.
The real quarry of the hunt was the delivery ship Red Sea. Another yacht seized at Corfu was said to have received 30 kilos of heroin from the former vessel for the Greek underground market, but the Red Sea itself was said to be carrying a huge consignment of narcotics worth a staggering 150 million dollars. The information from Interpol stated that the ship was being manned by members of the Mafia and that while some of the merchandise was destined for Italy, West Germany and Britain, most of the haul was on its way to Canada and the U.S.
On the afternoon of October 4, Red Sea was spotted just off western Crete, having renamed itself twice during the voyage from Lebanon towards Sicily, first Portala, and now M.G.3. Units of the Greek airforce, navy and coast guard were alerted to the area, but the vessel had vanished.
The following morning a ship bearing a flag with the hammer-and-sickle was sighted in the area. Suspecting a hoax, the Greek authorities intercepted it, only to find that it was indeed a Soviet boat going about its own business.
Meanwhile, frogmen picking up a ton and a half of what the Doris had left behind, came upon buoys with electronic devices attached, indicating that ships with the proper equipment could drop off packets of ‘white death’ and pick them up, at their leisure, later.
On the afternoon of October 5, Greek authorities radioed that Red Sea had been located off the western Peloponnesus and had now been renamed Bassan B. The ship was seized by the anti-tornedo boat Loychi and brought into the port of Pylos. The Lebanese captain, Mohamed Apobark, denied that his ship was the former Red Sea, and pointed out that the unclear, but still legible, print painted out on the stern bore the names of Black Sea and Redsburg, which, he explained, happened to have been the former names of the Bassan B. Captain Apobark was able to prove that his ship had been off Limossol, Cyprus, on October 2 when Red Sea was known to be near Crete.
This information aroused further suspicion, however, since Limassol, together with Corfu, are known to be the chief exchange areas in the eastern Mediterranean narcotics trade.
As for the large black plastic sack which officers on board Loychi had observed being tossed out of a porthole and sinking at once into the sea, Apobark explained it was just normal rubbish from the galley. Collating data with sources from Interpol in Canada on the description of the vessel and assuming that Red Sea would not have altered totally the decor of its saloon, Greek authorities let Bassan Β free to pursue its own business.
Although America’s Mediterranean Sixth Fleet was now alerted, the phantom Red Sea was never found. Interpol, in fact, suggested that Red Sea, after all, might be five different ships. There was said to be a satellite boat, last known as Kazita, and a certain Ulysses, which might be carrying twenty tons of hashish and two of heroin. With all of these phantoms and metamorphoses, the Mediterranean — despite tourism, pollution, modernly equipped navies and drug traffic — remains the most mythological of seas.
