Editorial: Paralysis

With less than one month to go before the European Parliament election, the difficult situation in which Prime Minister Alexis finds himself is constantly worsening.

With the cards stacked against them, none of the initiatives that he and his government take suffice to turn the game around.

The PM hastens to provide cover for actions of his ministers – as he did in the case of his alternate health minister – thus alienating public opinion and creating a backlash in his own SYRIZA party.

It was and is wrong for the government to engage in scandal-mongering and pledges of handouts.

The Novartis affair, which the government called “the biggest scandal since the establishment of the Modern Greek state” turned out to be politically manufactured.

The package of benefits and handouts that the government will announce soon will mathematically lead to the fate of similar initiatives of past governments. It will not sway but rather anger voters.

Given this impasse and the dark electoral projections the only card the PM has left is snap elections.

Summer will be long and heavy for a government which has just taken a beating in the European Parliament election. If in addition many SYRIZA-backed local elections candidates do not make it into the second round, early summer elections will be the only option.

That is in the interest of the country. A summer respite is permissible but governmental paralysis is not.