Sunday, April 1, 2012

Who should Greeks vote for?

Since my Greek isn’t good enough, I need to rely on English news coming out of Greece (English media, blogs, etc.). Could it be that the English news coming out of Greece ignore one very important issue? Or could it be that this issue is being ignored by everyone, including the political parties?

I am talking about the upcoming elections. Normally, one would expect that parties competing for votes would inform the voters during the campaign about the things they plan to do if they get elected. I am not naïve enough to think that parties will always do what they promised during campaigns but at least there should be debates about competing plans/programs/ideas, etc.

Short of gimmicks like promising to cancel the real estate tax, I have not seen any economic plan proposed by any party, at least not in the English news coming out of Greece. Could it be that parties don’t have economic plans?

If the parties do not volunteer such information on their own, the media should pressure them to do it. It would actually be very simple: prepare a form listing the major issues of the day and request each party to state their position on each issue and argue the benefits of it.

To request their position on something like the overall Troika-plan would be wrong. To request their position on individual elements of the Troika-plan would be right.

I would guess that Greek voters are craving for perspectives where Greece will eventually recover. There is no single medicine which can accomplish that. Instead, there have to be competing plans and they and their benefits should be explained to voters. And this should happen soon because there is not so much time left!

2 comments:

  1. "Could it be that parties don’t have economic plans?"

    It's the same as everywhere. The elections are coming, the parties are promising to give more money to the people, social elements are thrown in the battle, but no one is thinking about a simple thing: who will pay for all these?

    When the public sector is suffocating the private sector, the real solutions are very dirty and hard to digest. So let there be honey...! :)

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  2. You're right, in that the parties aren't talking about the economy right now (thank goodness for illegal immigrants, it gives them something to posture about) - but most people already know what each party stands for from watching how they've been voting for the various parliamentary votes over the past 2 years. I don't think there is much need for them to stand up and say "this is what we will do" since their voting record is a pretty clear indication. But you're right, Greek media isn't getting much of this either. They finally got over the illegal immigration obsession yesterday or the day before. Now we're back to generic drugs, the ferries striking for Easter, and a few other random things....

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