Maybe we should reconsider; perhaps the election process should be banned, if we are to believe the government.
The rationale, as expressed elegantly and melodramatically in the television adverts, is as such: if the people do not vote for New Democracy, the country will be destroyed. Once and for all.
If, on the contrary, the people vote for the governing party, the sun will shine once again over this land and all of us will catch some of those rays of happiness…
So consequently, why should we have elections? If voting freely more or less results in suicide, perhaps it would best to not vote.
Not indefinitely, maybe just for a couple decades, until things even out and then we can go back to the ballot box…
Doesn’t that all sound nightmarish and – paradoxically – childish at the same time? That is exactly what the government is saying though.
At first it was PASOK that said in a more clumsy way (“if you don’t vote for PASOK we will turn into a Ukraine”) and now New Democracy is saying it.
They are just a couple years behind. Back then, in the 2012 elections, the dominant fear mongering was “either with us or outside of the euro, Europe and straight to hell”.
The truth is it worked then and brought results. The people were terrified and this occurred in conjunction with a deeply divisive rational, the Greek people were segregated in two categories: the “serious” and “responsible” New Democracy voters and everyone else with other opinions.
We have said time and time again that such a divisive political discourse is unacceptable, just like the “us or chaos” rational. It worked back then though.
Now, however, it does not. The people will vote freely and the government’s effort to “criminalize” voting through scaremongering will fail. The trick is old and it does not work anymore.
Voting freely is not crime. It is the ultimate constitutional right and the duty of every citizen.
On the contrary, it is criminal for the government to present voting freely as a crime.
Giorgos P. Malouchos
