One of the major refrains of former premier Papandreou during the recent election campaign was that there were no problems. And this seems to have encouraged political dozing on a wide scale — to about 39 percent, to be precise. But come a crisis, particularly at the eleventh hour, which is always when Greece first stirs, and the powers of intellect and ingenuity come rushing to the fore.
For this reason, the things that seemed to be going wrong in the aftermath of the June elections turned out to be all for the best. The fact that no party won an absolute majority in parliament – which, if one had, might have put many back into the arms of Morpheus – meant that bright, alternate solutions had to be thought up.
If the Right had won outright it might have become arrogant; in its pursuit of exposing scandals alone, accused of witch-hunting; in its zeal to punish, thought vengeful. As it is, mandates were handed out by the president to each party in turn to form a government, thought about, rejected and returned.
Then, at the last moment, good sense prevailed. This must be credited to the Left, which has recently learned what benefits may be reaped from alliances. And in so far as PASOK would have nothing to do with sharing power with the party which had defeated it, while Mitsotakis not only agreed to a general coalition but to stepping aside as well for someone else of his party to lead it, it didn’t need Solomon the Wise to discover who had the true interests of the country at heart and who didn’t.
While the socialists fumed over this elopement of Right with Left and claimed it would result in giving birth to some terrifying political monster, the cohabitants themselves assured the people that all family planning devices would be employed except those which might inhibit exposure of the alleged scandals in the previous government. The trial shack-up, both sides insisted, was one of convenience, not of passion. As a result, the Left beamed in the new light of recognition and respectability, which the conservatives, who always had a sneaking fondness for Leonidas Kyrkos and think it’s just a funny quirk in his character that he happens to be a communist, were delighted with his scathing anti-PASOK statements in parliament. So popular have these sessions become on depropagandized TV that all the junk food people are clamoring to stud the debates with their advertising spots.
Holding ideologically such opposing views of society, this new coalition is very limited in what it can accomplish. Little can be done about freeing the economy which seems to be in a desperate state. But even if the country does go under, as financial pessimists fear -never mind! The ingenuity of Greeks has taken care of that, too. If the country has hit bottom, the only way left is up.
So obvious, yet so original was the solution, it’s amazing it hadn’t been thought of earlier. If the ship of state is floundering at the bottom of the sea, why not put it in the capable hands of a former submarine commander?
The new prime minister, Tzannis Tzannetakis, born in the port town of Gytheion at the entrance to the Mani, is a rugged man of the sea. Making a career of the Navy, he was the only commander to resign his commission when the junta took over. He spent nine months in cell 13 in the Secret Police Prison near Drossia and then was forcibly embarked for Kythera where he spent another nine months. After that he developed administrative skills as a manager in industry. In 1975 he became General Secretary of the National Tourist Organization, so he’s as well informed on what goes on topside as below. As befits a submarine officer, he keeps a low profile, drives his own car to work and doesn’t need the whole Hellenic Police Force to monitor his comings and goings.
The qualities implied in such a career seem ideally suited to the tasks that lie before Mr Tzannetakis and his government. May morality be joined with modesty.
Though accustomed from his naval career to having everything tidily organized into a small space, even he must have been impressed by the ship-shape neatness and austerity of former premier Papandreou’s work area: empty safes, cupboards bare, typewriters and faxes gone, cabinets empty of files, no archival material, no pending correspondence with the Great. Not even a paper clip. The only thing that the new prime minister is on record to have found is a rubber stamp.
It seems that almost all other ministers had this same Old-Mother-Hub-bard problem. Not a bone to be found. The directive that no new minister should be greeted by a former one is said to have emanated from Papandreou himself, as a deliberate breach of etiquette. It was certainly a brilliant final display of the PASOK style. But to find no files, no official papers, no records, no briefs, no accounts, was astonishing – if not foolhardy – for the destruction of state documents is a severely punishable offense. It was, as many said, like the quite well organized flight of a not very well organized Army of Occupation.
Mr Tzannetakis tried to get in touch with Mr Papandreou on this matter but couldn’t get through. The latter’s office airily informed him that there were no files because their existence implied unsolved problems. PASOK, however, he was told, had solved all its problems and, therefore, files were unnecessary.
Maybe even bare cupboards are a blessing. For countries with very long histories, like Greece, the past can be a burden. The poet Seferis compared it to a marble head lying heavily in one’s lap. Maybe, without files, the present government will feel more flexible. Freed of that weight, the new captain of the ship of state may more easily command: “Batten down the hatches; we’re going up”.
