Greece’s grey election campaign turns voters to comedy

Greek elections have traditionally been raucous, ebullient affairs, a true celebration of democracy in the country that gave birth to the concept. This year, the mood is noticeably more sombre ahead of Sunday’s vote. Colourful elections kiosks at main squares stand nearly empty, attracting few voters. The chat at cafes and on the Internet usually centres on voters’ disappointment with politics as a whole for failing to fight corruption and put the economy on a steady growth path.

“Our expectations were dashed,” said financial analyst George Kaisarios on the NewsTime blog. “The three pylons of our development strategy in the last decade, euro zone entry, Olympic Games and credit expansion, have been wasted. And unfortunately for all of us, there is nothing on the horizon to replace them.”

One mood damper for Greek voters is that Oct 4 election is another big battle between the political dynasties trapped in an endlessly revolving door of political rule, with few fresh faces to excite the crowds.

Athenians lament Attica forest destruction

Dark smoke covered the Athens sky over the weekend, its thick plumes rising over the Acropolis and rekindling memories of the huge, deadly fires of 2007 that nearly cost Greece’s ruling conservatives their re-election.

For Athenians glued to TV pictures of frantic residents trying to battle flames reaching their backyards with buckets and garden houses, it was much more than a dramatic struggle to rescue property.

What they were watching was some of the last remaining patches of green around the metropolis of nearly 5 million people going up in smoke, the capital’s “lungs” giving up.

From a small town at the foot of the Acropolis in the early 1800s, Athens has grown into a huge bustling capital with heavy traffic and pollution. It relies heavily on its surrounding green hills to provide oxygen and cool it down in the difficult summer months.

New Acropolis museum-perfect home for Parthenon marbles?

Black-robed Orthodox priests chanted and sprinkled holy water to bless Greece’s new, ultra-modern Acropolis Museum, which opens officially on June 20 with the hope of bringing back the Parthenon marbles from Britain.

What if early Christians tore down statues and temples in a effort to eradicate paganism? The ancient, medieval and modern merged seemlessly during the ceremony held ahead of the formal inauguration.

“Art elevates man,” said the bishop officiating. “I bless all those who worked for this museum.”

The stunning, glass and concrete building at the foot of the Acropolis had almost as turbulent a history as the ancient monument itself. Neighbours fought for years in court to move it away, international design contests were cancelled and finally ruins were found right beneath it, requiring a complete redesign.

Cyprus reunification talks – drowned out by shouting?

After months of Cyprus reunification talks, what comes out of the negotiating room more often than anything else, is shouting.

Greek Cypriot President Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat, appear to have made little headway in the conundrum that has defied generations of international diplomats.

Western diplomats and analysts on the divided Mediterranean island are starting to wonder if the euphoria that surrounded the launch of the talks in September 2008, was justified.

“They went back to the drawing board, that’s the main problem,” said Mete Hatay, a researcher for the PRIO peace institute in Nicosia.

Scandal-plagued Greeks shrug off corruption

Bombarded with revelations of scandals for decades, Greeks have developed a slightly thick skin regarding graft. An opinion poll this week showed corruption was rated fifth among top voter concerns, coming after the global economic crisis, education, crime and health.

Fed up with years of socialist scandals, Greeks elected the conservative New Democracy government by a landslide in 2004, mostly convinced by its pledges to clean up Greek politics.

Five years later, fresh scandals have made headlines, ranging from selling overpriced government bonds to state pension funds to suspect land deals with a wealthy monastery.

The euro zone member is among the EU’s lowest ranking countries on the Transparency International corruption watchdog’s index, actually worsening a few notches in recent years.

The rise and fall of George Alogoskoufis

Just a year ago, Greek Finance Minister George Alogoskoufis was riding high as the man who rescued his conservative New Democracy party from election defeat with his handling of forest fires so deadly and devastating that they could have toppled any other European government. His star rose and he was seen even as a possible successor to Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis.

On Wednesday, the man once praised by the European Union for cutting budget deficits and pushing reforms, was sacked by Karamanlis in a reshuffle aimed at reviving the government’s ailing fortunes.

For his friends, the economics professor with the funny name - translates as ‘horse-hood’ in English – paid the political price for the conservative government’s eroding public support as the global crisis hits Greece.

But for his critics, it was Alogoskoufis’s policies that brought the ruling New Democracy, seen as supporting the rich and neglecting the needy, to its worst standing in polls in years.

Protesters rule the web in internet backwater Greece

Anarchy in Exarchia

Even the most hardened residents of Exarchia are shocked by the intensity of the violence that has hit this Bohemian district of Athens which has been my home on-and-off for the last 20 years.

As police fought youths this weekend, tear gas hung in the air and even seeped through window cracks, making it hard  to breathe indoors.

Garbage cans were set ablaze, cars were destroyed and barricades were erected.

“It’s never been this bad,” one neighbour shouted at me from his balcony. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”    

What should a minister’s wife do in Greece?

The heir to one of Greece’s most distinguished political families, Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, helped his conservative New Democracy party sweep to power in 2004 by convincing Greeks tired of decades of socialist graft that he would clean up Greek politics.

But public discontent with a new set of scandals and a slowing economy has hit the popularity of his government and party. 

One of the many problems Karamanlis faces is over the role played by the wife of one of his closest aides, Minister of State Theodoros Roussopoulos, who is also the minister dealing with the press.

His wife, Mara Zacharea, is a journalist who appears on television as a news commentator and also co-owns a media company. 

Can Cyprus “comrades” clinch a deal?

The leaders of Cyprus’s Greek and Turkish communities sipped coffee and called each other “comrade” as they launched a new round of talks on reuniting the island, whose 34-year division has exasperated the most committed of mediators.                                     This time, foreign diplomats and analysts say, a solution is in sight, thanks largely to the two moderate, leftist men heading the negotiations – Greek Cypriot Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot Mehmet Ali Talat.

Although it has been years since any violence has erupted on the island, the simmering feud has far-reaching effects onTurkey’s EU aspirations, its relations with fellow NATO member Greece and politics in the eastern Mediterranean.

Fed up with former president Tassos Papadopoulos, who tearfully asked Greek Cypriots to vote down a U.N. re-unification plan in 2004, voters elected Christofias this year and turned the tide on an issue that has long baffled the international community.

Or have they? Local analysts warn against excessive euphoria, saying that the obvious positive climate between the two leaders needs to trickle down to the ground for a deal to be made. Both communities must approve any solution in simultaneous referendums.