After one electoral year (May 2023-June 2024) and four elections, all of which it won, the government clearly needs a restart.
A reboot.
Which is fair enough. Because, for governments, the clock doesn’t start ticking from the last election, but from the first. And the Mitsotakis premiership is already in its sixth year.
What’s more, it embarked on its second term without a clear constellation to guide it. Perhaps because the electoral cycle hadn’t run its course. Maybe because its original narrative has run out of steam.
But most definitely because the government is alone out there on the playing field. With only its everyday problems and itself for company.
That the Opposition cuts a pathetic figure goes without saying. But the Government shouldn’t get complacent on the back of that alone.
It has been noted many times that when a political and parliamentary Opposition disappears or disintegrates, the chancers, opportunists and what the President of the Hellenic Parliament describes as “vulgar attention seekers” lose no time in filling the void it leaves behind.
So it isn’t enough that the government is alone on stage. It must also know what it’s doing and, crucially, it has to sell its agenda to the nation.
Mitsotakis’ second term may have had its fair share of sound moves and mistakes, but what it lacks most of all to date is a powerful narrative to bundle everything up together into a coherent and convincing plan.
That the country has returned to normality, which was the goal of the Government’s first term, is clear to see. But the time has come to move on to the next step.
All the more so, since the government must do more with the near-unprecedented domination it enjoys than simply use it to wield power without hindrance and slap itself on the back for a job well done.
If the administration fails to move on, its power will quickly fade without anything being achieved.
No, it is imperative that it exploits the situation, which is unlikely to arise again, to undertake a thorough overhaul of Greek society, introducing new elements and contemporary content.
Which is why a restart is most definitely needed.
So, let’s hope the Prime Minister doesn’t use his annual speech at the Thessaloniki International Trade Fair to announce payments, services, investments and tax cuts, as he usually does, but rather seizes the opportunity to present his masterplan.
“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there”, the White Rabbit says in Alice in Wonderland.
No objections there. But Greece is no Wonderland. And the government is no Alice.
