The post of mayor is primarily used as a preamble or launching pad into political power; it has been used as a consolation for those who have failed (i.e. candidate MPs who didn’t manage to get elected); and in a few cases, the post was honored by people who accomplished a lot with it.
Today we are not assessing what the successful or failed municipal leaders achieved. After all, we must take into consideration that in the 50s, 60s and early on after the Changeover (after the end of the military dictatorship from 1967), the municipal elections, especially in the large cities, acted like referendums for and against the government in power and the opposition at the time. The municipal elections were an opportunity for the people to express their dissatisfaction with the government in power.
It is worth pointing out that during the administrations of K. Karamanlis (founder of ERE and New Democracy) no right-wing mayor was elected. And later when the centrist faction rose to power (the Giorgos Papandreou administration), it lost the municipal elections in Athens. A few years later when New Democracy dominated, Dimitris Beis was elected mayor with the support from PASOK and during Andreas Papandreou’s administration Miltiadis Evert became mayor.
All this leads to the conclusion that the municipal elections may create an impression, but typically they do not have any political meaning. They simply give the opportunity to certain people to demonstrate unexpected skills.
The upcoming municipal elections will not reveal a new government! They will give the parties the opportunity to show off how they operate.
Mr. Samaras as well as Mr. Tsipras have suffered in the preamble to the elections – in selecting their candidates.
The struggle continues!
Stavros P. Psycharis
– Originally published in the Sunday print edition
