A month in a populist DEMOCRACY’s life
In early September 2018, something extraordinary happened in the European Parliament in Strasbourg: Two populist leaders, one on the right the other on the left, were invited to address the MEPs but for different reasons. In the afternoon plenary, Viktor Orbán stood accused for promoting democratic illiberalism in Hungary. Meanwhile, in the morning plenary, Alexis Tsipras of Greece had been given an opportunity to criticize the European Parliament itself for being “antidemocratic.” As I happened to be present in the Chamber, and witness both events, I was stricken by the different ways two leaders I considered fully populist were treated by the same legislative body. In a way of empirical experiment, I decided to keep a log of developments in Greek internal politics for the (random) month of September. Here is what I observed, and what I wrote at the time as an op-ed, which however was not published:-)
On 11 September 2018 the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, went through a strange experience. In the morning plenary session, its members were asked to applaud a left populist leader for having completed an eight-year bailout program while his country remains in a shambles. In the afternoon plenary, the majority of deputies in the chamber became determined to discipline a right populist leader for the illiberal ways of ruling his own country. What explains such a different treatment by the European Parliament of two almost indistinguishably populist leaders? Presuming that they are neither bipolar nor biased in showing a preference for left over right populism, the simplest and only logical explanation is that the European lawmakers are misinformed.
The protagonist of the morning plenary was Greece’s prime minister Alexis Tsipras, who had been invited to talk in the chamber on the future of Europe. After being cordially introduced to the chamber by European Commission Vice President Valdis Dobrovskis, Tsipras thought it best to criticize the shortcomings of the European Union, which he accused of being antidemocratic, and warn the Parliament that next year’s European elections would be a fight for survival against populist movements of the right seeking to destroy the EU. He also decided, breaking with the tradition of keeping domestic politics out of international forums, to personally attack the leader of major opposition party, New Democracy, for nepotism and nationalist populism.
The afternoon plenary protagonist was Hungary’s premier Viktor Orbán. According to a meticulously detailed report prepared by Judith Sargentini, a Dutch legislator, Orbán’s government stood accused of such illiberal practices as undermining the functioning of Hungary’s constitutional system; the independence of its judiciary; the freedom of expression of press, academia and civic associations; as well as violating minority rights, mistreating migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees. With several of Orbán’s former allies in the European Parliament deserting him and vice president of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, expressing his “serious concerns” about the situation in Hungary, the Parliament voted by ample majority to trigger article 7 of the Treaty on European Union that may ultimately lead to lifting Hungary’s voting rights in the EU institutions.
The sharply different treatment of two populist leaders is problematic, especially because some have come to the conclusion that Tsipras has now gone from being the Greek Corbyn to the EU’s poster boy. This is an erroneous belief. And if the European Parliament is so deeply concerned about the situation in Hungary it should be no less worried when a former Greek prime minister has already accused that Greece’s current populist government is undermining democracy. So, is Greece following Hungary’s path?
To find out, I kept a log of Greek politics during one single month, September 2018. Although the month selection is random, that was a time that the Greek government should feel both confident and optimistic. Confident because only a few days ago, on 20 August, Greece had ended its long saga under bailout from the Eurozone and the IMF, and optimistic because on 29 August, premier Tsipras reshuffled his cabinet to signify a fresh beginning for post-memorandum Greek politics. As previously, the new cabinet included representatives of the far-right party of Independent Greeks and, with 53 members, was certainly oversized. But what would mostly distinguish it was its ever-growing illiberalism.
Separation of powers, rule of law, and fear of technocracy
Begin with the new Minister of Justice, Michalis Kalogirou, a lawyer who in the past had made a name for representing anarchist groups using to mail parcel bombs to foreign diplomats. His assertion upon assuming his tasks that the judiciary and the executive “need both be on the same side in the fight against the enemies of the public interest,” prompted a critical article by the Financial Times entitled “Syriza choice for Justice minister sparks Greek rule of law fears.” Almost immediately, the minister refuted the FT piece, but also went further with a covert threat: “Following clarifications,” he declared, “any reference or reproduction of the [FT] article is institutional misconduct that aims at the creation of [false] perceptions, especially to the international audience and towards serving petty political purposes, and will be addressed with the proper way.”
Another episode of public intimidation by the state itself happened only a few days later. In the aftermath of the late July wildfires in Attica and a death toll that has now reached 99 people, the major opposition New Democracy party commissioned Costas Synolakis, a respected expert on natural hazards management at the Technical University of Crete, to produce a report about the fire inferno. The report said that the evacuation of the area destroyed by the fire could have been possible in less than 90 minutes, which the government had failed to do. In response, alternate Minister of Health Pavlos Polakis lashed out against the technocratic expert, but also did something more. He posted on Facebook the alleged address and a photo of the expert’s house, warning him about “electrocution” risks.
A new lοw for Greece’s rule of law was reached towards the close of September with the continuation of hounding Andreas Georgiou, the former chief of the Greek statistics agency for allegedly inflating the public deficit in order to justify Greece’s bailout program. Although Georgiou has already been cleared twice in the past by the Court of Appeals, the prosecutor decided to send the case to the same court for a third time.
Freedom of the press and state-run propaganda
By far the most serious assault against the freedom of press and rule of law happened in late September. The publisher, editor in chief and another journalist of the Greek newspaper Fileleftheros (The Liberal) were arrested and detained over a frontline article alleging mishandling of EU funds given to Greece for improving conditions in refugee hotspots in Greece. The arrest followed a lawsuit filed by Defense Minister Panos Kammenos, whose ministry is responsible for handling the EU funds. New Democracy party accused the minister of “thuggery” and, eventually, some key European leaders seemed to become sensitized for the growth of illiberalism in Greece. The European Anti-Fraud Agency (OLAF) also decided to look into the case after the discovery of “certain irregularities from the Ministry of Defense with a food contractor.”
State intimidation towards political opponents, technocratic experts, the press and the civil society did not only come personally from prominent cabinet members; they also came from the state-run media. One such case occurred in mid-September when, during a talk-show in public ERT TV channel, some journalist derided on air a recent speech by opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis saying: “I thought I was listening to the Italian theorist of fascism, Sergio Panunzio, who introduced nationalistic elements to Italy’s Mussolini.” Immediately after the incident, New Democracy accused the government for “disgusting propaganda” and decided to withdraw all its MPs and party officials from all ERT programs, thus feeding political polarization even more.
Human right violations, public order, and academic safety
In a report published in early September by UK-based Refugee Rights Europe, two-thirds of residents at the Moria hot spot and other refugee camps on the island of Lesvos said they “never feel safe’ in the facilities provided to them by the Greek state. Another 22.4% said that they “don’t feel very safe.” Almost half (48.2%) said that they have witnessed another camp resident die, with 53.4% of that percentage saying that the fatality occurred as a result of violence and 40.5% believing that a death had resulted from untreated health problems. Almost half of respondents said they had experienced some form of police violence, mostly being exposed to tear gas. Physical violence was reported by 34.3% and verbal abuse by 35.6% of respondents. “There were also reports of sexual abuse, although it should be noted that it has not been possible to verify these accounts,” the report said.
Meanwhile in Athens public order in September was repeatedly disturbed without punishment by Rubicon, an anarchist group whose members have in the past year mounted dozens of attacks on foreign embassy buildings, diplomats’ homes, foreign-owned business premises and government offices. On 18 September the Greek police failed to avert a new attack by Rubicon to the embassy of Iran, one of the best-guarded in Athens. A video of the incident posted online showed men wearing crash helmets asking the armed guard to stay aside and then smashing his booth and defacing the embassy building with paint. In yet another incident later in the same month, members of Rubicon entered a church in central Athens shouting slogans and interrupting the mass.
In September also was made public another report with recommendations for safer university campuses prepared by a committee led by former SYRIZA justice minister Nikos Paraskevopoulos. To curb chronic lawlessness (ranging from thefts and drug dealing to the occupation of faculty buildings and destruction of university property), the report proposed such solutions as the removal of all cash machines from university campuses, the organization of voluntary support groups for drug addicts, the creation of “supervised leisure areas” for students lest they avoid occupying buildings, and the establishment of committees to discuss and negotiate with members of sit-ins during which vandalism usually occurs! The youth organization of the major opposition party rejected the report as “unacceptable, ridiculous and offensive.”
Greece like Hungary?
It is understandable that the European Commission and the European Parliament, burdened with other serious problems, not least of them the situation in Orbán’s Hungary, want to put a positive spin to the Greek story. But, for close observers of Greek politics and the Greek people alike, the reality is quite different. It is also a reality that reflects clearly in two other reports that, incidentally, became public in September. The first is the latest Human Freedom Index showing that since 2008 the largest slump in freedom has occurred in Syria, Egypt, Venezuela, Belize and Greece; the second is the 2018 annual report on economic freedom in the world by the Frazer Institute in which Greece ranks 108th among 162 countries surveyed, sharing the same position as China and Swaziland. As freedom deteriorates in Greece and the Greek economy for all practical purposes remains depressed and committed to maintaining a high budget surplus, Greece’s politics will continue sliding towards illiberalism in a way reminiscent of Hungary’s populist democracy.
