The situation is going from bad to worse. In all these days the two largest political parties have not been able to reach a concensus in order to create a coalition government. Tonight they were finally supposed to announce the formation of the new government and the name of the new Prime Minister. Instead, the evening meeting ended in a fight, when George Karatzaferis head of LAOS, stormed out of President Papoulias’ office saying that he was kept waiting alone while Samaras and Papandreou were “secretly scheming.” Mr. Karatzaferis’ reaction has triggered more chaos. The other leaders deny any of these accusations. They said they were waiting for his arrival and for the meeting to start.
The entire country is numb and sickened by the political process. In recent hours journalists were saying that the new Prime Minister, would be Philippos Petsalnikos, currently the president of Parliament. The possibility of such a choice caused outrage amongst Parliamentarians. He is not the favored choice by his colleagues for many reasons. He is certainly not the kind of person who can help our EU partners feel more at ease with what is going on and instill a sense of confidence that Greece will make it through the difficulties ahead.
Naturally, the international community has no interest in the ins and outs of Greek internal politics but the fact that Papandreou gave a goodbye speech and the meeting has now been postponed until tomorrow at 10am Greek time is just dangerous.
The public has now understood the truth and change will be imminent if only some worthy new candidates rise out of the ashes of the political system that has let a whole country down.
Sophia Kalantzakos 