There is no team of scriptwriters of any TV maxi series alive today which has either the imagination, the verbal skill, the sense of incongruity, the wit, the stamina or the sheer bravado to concoct situations anything like what passes for normal, everyday political life in this country. Prosaic countries may take centuries to pass through the whole Aristotelian cycle of all possible types of government known to man, but Greece can go from infrared Left to ultraviolet Right in the course of a few years. Still, it helps to have the Man with the Bushy Eyebrows waiting in the wings when the juggling act gets out of hand.
During the inaugural reception held at the Presidential Palace on 9 May, newly-elected President Karamanlis became slightly indisposed and retired to an antiroom. The reception, scheduled to last 30 minutes, went on for one hour and 40 minutes, and the chief of state, 83, felt faint from standing so long under bright lights and video, shaking hands with his guests.
Afternoon daily Eleftherotypia is said to have paid two million drachmas for three photos of the president slightly reeling as he shook hands with MP Theodore Katsikis which it splashed on its ever-thrilling front page. This gesture, in a way, was appropriate since Katsikis, the single Democratic Renewal Party deputy, by voting for Mitsotakis, gave the conservative party the one-seat majority it needed to come to power.
Members of all parties were hugely relieved to see the president re-emerge after an absence of 10 minutes, smiling and quite recovered. One reason for the relief is that, should it be necessary for any reason to replace a president, it is most likely under present circumstances that the country go to general elections again. This is a fate that no party wants to inflict on the country’s harassed 8,654,668 registered voters who’ve spent quite enough time lately shoving bits of paper into the slots of wooden boxes.
The other reason for relief was more profound. Although the socialists and communists had put up presidential candidates of their own, Karamanlis was as indispensable to the country as a leader can get.
On 4 May, Karamanlis took the presidential oath. He had been elected president by parliament with 153 votes, 150 coming from all, well-obeying members of the New Democracy party which Karamanlis had founded in 1974, another from Mr Katsikis and two more from independent Moslems.
After the ceremony, Mr Karamanlis regained the Presidential Palace out of which he had walked in a huff five years and two months ago. Now he strode, smiling, back into it, received by outgoing Christos Sartzetakis. Karamanlis had resigned in 1985 when, just before the presidential elections, Andreas Papandreou switched support to Sartzetakis. So, now, Karamanlis replaced the president who had replaced him.
In agreeing to become a candidate for election, Karamanlis seemed to have changed his mind. Several months ago he had made a stir when he remarked, out of semi-retirement, that the country resembled “an extended madhouse”. As recently as February, he turned down a proposal that he stand for presidential elections, saying that the ailing stale of the country’s political life would make his presence in the public world “of doubtful value”.
More likely he wanted greater assurance in becoming a candidate that he would be certain of winning. This proviso was satisfied when ND won half the seats in parliament in April and the vote of Mr Katsikis was assured.
In the end, just as de Gaulle did whom he so admired, Mr Karamanlis condescended to save his country twice, and like Cincinnatus, too, was pursuaded to leave his plow in Politeia high up on the terraces of Mount Pendeli and return to the city.
About the multi-faceted (an old PASOK epithet) mess in Athens, Karamanlis had no illusions at all. In his acceptance speech he reminded his listeners of the crisis “which all Greeks acknowledge even when they disagree as to its causes…Time, hard work and sacrifices will be required from all Greeks.”
With the return of Karamanlis, some said Greece was moving forward into the past. But the famous eyebrows, if whiter, are as bushy as ever. It means an end to the empty slogans, “Never again the Right” and the rest of them: there is a great deal of political hot air still to be got rid of along with the nefos. And after the recent adventures, it’s good to be back home, especially as the house is in great need of repair.
It isn’t healthy for a democracy to be so dependent on one person, yet it’s better than not having no one around at all. But the country isn’t healthy; it needs healing. Its suffers from excess and needs a spate of hard work to trim it back into shape under a seasoned trainer who knows what’s best for it.
