Greece voted Socialist yesterday, ending a 6 year tenure of the conservative New Democracy party.
Mr George Papandreou, leader of the Socialist party, a US-born male, not the wittiest boy in town, is to become the 3rd generation prime minister in Greece -- following his grandfather and father.
Sign of the times: Greece honours (nepotist) tradition!
In fine, however, these electoral results remind me of a singles tennis match; as it happens, it is not really the Socialists who won, but the Conservatives who lost.
Whatever.
Hopefully, people living in Greece will not have to suffer, yet again, the customary PASOK arrogance...
Further: digging deeper into electoral mechanics, there is no doubt that from an operational point of view one had to vote for one or the other of the major parties. Failure to do so could easily lead to a minority in parliament, in turn leading to complications, frail coalitions, and ultimately new elections... ad nauseam.
Yet, a good 20% of the voters chose one of the other parties -- i.e. the ones you have on the menu even though everyone knows that their cumulative contribution to day-to-day administration and their grasp of social matters, is nil. They are vociferous and stultifying of course.
So why do people choose them?
I believe it is a non-rational (as opposed to irrational) vote: it is an emotional choice. Nostalgia and the sadness for lost causes and broken dreams
E.g. why else, if not for die-hard emotional reasons, would one vote for Soviet-type communists? God (Lenin) Bless them, the Soviet Union does not exist any more!
And you get many others, too: mostly revolutionary of one ilk or another; not to be outdone, there are humorous choices too (ex: KOTES= HE. N.S.)
So, fortunately, for all those who have the guts to vote anything BUT utilitarian: in Greece there was choice -- 16 choices in fact.
How many countries are thus fortunate?
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