A Trojan horse at Athens’ gate

Press, 30 May 1985, Page 12

A Trojan horse at Athens’ gate

A former professor of political economy at the University of Athens, Dr NICOS DEVLETOGLOU, fears that Greece is sliding towards a totalitarian form of government. Reprinted from the “Daily Telegraph,” London

Most people in the European Community and in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation must be relieved to know that there is to be a General Election in Greece in June, but it will be a muffled sense of relief. Greek-style democracy is hardly the kind of democracy most of us would ungrudgingly describe as Western.

In socialist Greece, the feeling is widespread that the country faces one of the deepest crises of its recent history. If the election is not accepted, both inside and outside the country, as a free and fair test of the people’s will, the ensuing upheaval will yet again lead to civil war or a military takeover — with untold damage for the rest of Europe as well. What is at stake is not only whether Greece will remain a democracy of sorts but also whether N.A.T.O. and the E.E.C. can easily weather the shock of losing a partner. Last month’s presidential election was not a happy portent. The President is elected by secret ballot of members of Parliament. A bright blue ballot was provided for the one and only candidate — readily distinguishable from the blank paper signifying an abstention; members of the ruling party were made to sit in an order which meant that their voting could be monitored; and even the acting President was hastily summoned to vote (against the recommendation of experts in constitutional law whom the Government had consulted) and his, as it turned out, was the vote which tipped the balance. Earlier episodes in Mr Andreas Papandreou’s record in upholding Western values during his three-and-a-half years in power speak for themselves. Ranging from brotherly embraces with the world’s perhaps most notorious dictators, Jaruzelski and Gaddafi, to several other ill-conceived ventures promoting “peace,” the controversial exploits of Mr Papandreou include the steady dissociation of Greece from criticism of the Soviet Union on such central issues as human rights, the military build-up, development of medium-range missiles, Poland, and Afghanistan. The sorry tale continues with the Greek Government’s opposition to deployment of new mediumrange missiles in western Europe coupled with constant pressure in favour of a nuclear-free zone in the Balkans — thus creating a serious security problem for other members of the alliance.

It is no less disturbing that the Greek Government decided unilat-

erally to cancel, from last year, the traditional Greek-American military manoeuvres in northern Greece at the very time that Mr Papandreou’s party quietly signed its protocol agreement of “cooperation for peace” with Czechoslovakia’s Soviet-run Communist Party. Hence, too, Mr Papandreou’s warm reception during his official visit to the Soviet Union earlier this year, followed by the systematic upgrading of Greece’s relations with Bulgaria and Albania. The benign interpretation is that the Greek premier is making a total nuisance of himself to secure a “special status” for Greece in the alliance, and more particularly within the European Community through his unrelenting demands for greater financial sacrifices by the Nine in favour of Greece (and eventually Spain and Portugal). It remains to be seen whether that is consistent with such past — or impending — events that are already putting to a gruesome test both the Community’s political unity and its credibility in both defence and foreign policy. Against this background, the Government has given top priority in the last few years to gaining party control of all decision-mak-ing and opinion-forming processes in the country, a policy that is coming home with a vengeance. The civil service, provisional governors, trade unions, farmers’ associations and co-operations, the universities and secondary schools, the judiciary, the police, all Staterun enterprises, large private organisations, “socialised” under the pretext of bad management, State radio and television — and, above all, the armed forces — are today almost fully integrated into the all-important party machine that practically governs the country.

It may be too early to tell whether this already amounts to suppression of democracy in Greece. What most people certainly regret, however, is that Mr Constantine Mitsotakis, the Opposition leader, who is somewhat nonchalantly going to the country on a simple anti-Marxist ticket, seems not to heed the loud and clear warnings that the days of democracy in Greece are numbered unless the June election is conducted in a truly democratic manner.

In accordance with well-estab-lished constitutional convention and political practice in Greece, an interim Government conducts the elections in circumstances where its impartiality cannot be

otherwise guaranteed. The New Democracy Party has, I believe, behaved feebly when it could have demanded this safeguard. Indeed, why has the main opposition party practically colluded with the Government in violating both the independence and the democratic mandate per se of the next Parliament by introducing, for the first time in Greek history, the so-called “party-list” system? According to such a system a person is not elected to Parliament directly by the people; but,

instead, in the order his or her name appears in the party’s official ballot for each electoral region — in turn a process autocratically determined by the party leader in the absence even of a semblance of party democracy. Is this not a massive step in the direction of a totalitarian form of government in Greece, where a handful of politicians virtually determine the composition of Parliament prior to the election itself — in a country, too, where not even the President of the

Republic is elected directly by the people but by “Parliament” instead? It is for these reasons that I, for one. have declined to participate in this election.

We shall soon know whether or not a series of fatal mistakes has been made in the strategic thinking of those who — for better or worse — hold for the moment the key to restoring to Greece its dignity as a Parliamentary democracy within the wider context of European stability.