Two unfortunate words [opinion]

There is a tendency for some words to be frequently used at times, as a result of the financial crisis, with the latest being the word, “cutter”. It seems that, only a few weeks after the Greeks started using it, the word doesn’t have a future. And this because it has a very dark past.

It’s been revealed in the past few days that the law 4339 of 2014 was voted in Parliament by the previous government of Antonis Samaras and Evangelos Venizelos and its content was unclear. Therefore it fell into disuse by a part of the media and it was recently revived, after a proposal by our Eurozone partners.

Some say – and it is partly confirmed by political circles – that back then the “cutter” referred to austerity measures of 22 billion euros that would burden the Greek citizens. Now there is a significant “discount” to 3.6 billion euros.

If the word “cutter” has had an unfortunate luck, the word “elections” – which is as old as the Greek Democracy – will have an even more uncertain course.

The word’s misfortune continues… It became known that the “cutter” won’t be “automatic”, since it is at the Greek government’s disposal to approve its use, in case there is a deflection in the state budget or in case the government doesn’t manage to come up with equivalent measures to successfully cover a financial loss. And as revealed in the e-mail by Gikas Hardouvelis, a new, major decrease of wages and pensions would be implemented once the “cutter” was imposed, and the burden would exceed 1.5 billion euros.

If the word “cutter” has had an unfortunate luck, the word “elections” – which is as old as the Greek Democracy – will have an even more uncertain course. The elections are indeed the most democratic element the human mind has ever invented. But it has been overused. It is now overused by New Democracy president, Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

We have mentioned before that early elections are promoted by certain lobbies for professional and personal reasons. To make it simple, let me remind you that our European partners are confronted with a referendum in Great Britain and two critical elections in Germany and France, as well as a critical, electoral procedure in Spain. Turmoil and elections in Greece is the last thing they want.

In Greece, neither the business world, nor the employees and the political parties (with the exception mentioned above) wish for elections. The review process will be completed by May 24th and there is a discussion already underway on the Greek debt, so the word “elections” that is on the daily vocabulary of New Democracy leader, K. Mitsotakis will most probably have a definite end. It won’t even be used as a party “excercise” for the members of ND. It might end up like Aesop’s fable with the shepherd, the sheeps, the villagers and the wolf.

* Konstantinos M. Pantzios is a journalist and a political analyst.

PHOTO: Aliki Eleftheriou