With Kasidiaris’s Greeks out of the race, the main question is not, of course, whether the regulation presented and voted on by the government was the right one – it did its job well – but why so many vote (or say they will vote) criminals to represent them in Parliament. What do these voters want and think? Do they want to overthrow the system or take revenge on the elites, because they themselves did not have the career and life they believe they deserve? They want revenge on those who wronged them or they simply admire violence. Are they expressed in those who go out into the street to punch or take out knives and kill? Do immigrants and all kinds of foreigners want to leave or are they worried about the pluralism and sometimes the cacophony of the Republic? Or are they just stupid?
In any case, if we just wait for the fascists to be crushed at the polls, we are probably waiting. The rise of far-right parties is a pan-European phenomenon, and if we can’t stop fascists in general from taking the chances of Democracy – this Democracy they hate – and being in Parliament, we can at least stop the bearers of of knives circulate freely through the halls of Parliament. And the regulation introduced and approved by the government was effective. She did her job very well.
A second question is why SYRIZA was absent from the democratic front and why it refused to send a memorandum to the Supreme Court supporting the arguments in favor of blocking neo-Nazi criminals. An attitude that Professor Alivizatos described as “narrow-minded” (ss indulgently if you want my opinion) but which probably doesn’t explain SYRIZA’s absence. “Why submit a memorandum for an amendment that we did not vote on?” Alexis Tsipras responded to his critics.
Excuse me, does the argument make any sense? Even if you disagree with the provisions introduced by the amendment, you are supposedly in agreement with the principle. In not having criminals in Parliament. What’s stopping you, why are you refusing to file a statement?
And if we assume that SYRIZA’s criticism of the government’s amendment was sincere and we do not adopt other interpretations, much more burdensome for the ruling opposition party, the main reason for disagreement was that the regulation was imperfect and was in danger of being rejected by the judges. . “Imagine what a great shame it would be for the country and democracy and what a great boost it would be for the extreme right if a decision were finally made to do them justice,” Mr Tsipras told Parliament.
All the more reason, since Alexis Tsipras feared that the regulation would suffer, to support the initiative with his own memorandum and with serious arguments. (Allow that the regulation was not finally rejected and the amendment was well…)
Even more interesting, however, is the answer given by the director of Mr. Tsipras’s office, Michalis Kalogirou, to Nikos Alivizatos, about the reasons for the absence of SYRIZA in the fight for democracy against the Nazis. Was it because SYRIZA did not agree to the arrangement? Of course not, there were other reasons. And who were they?
“SYRIZA-PS would not be able to sweep away the institutional far-right, Mr. Kalogirou said, by undertaking joint institutional initiatives with those who were monitoring, and we don’t even know if they continue to do so, political and high level ones.” state officials.” The reason for SYRIZA’s absence, then (if we believe Mr. Kalogirou and don’t give in to the stinking insinuations circulating about why SYRIZA did it in light leaps) is that it doesn’t agree with sign anything along with the ruling majority, which he characterizes as an “institutional extreme right” (whatever that means, it’s a bit like the centrist extreme the comrades say), questioning its democratic constitution and moral status.
But this, Nikos Alivizatos will forgive me, is not narrow-minded, it is pre-election expediency and fanaticism.
Even more revealing was Alexis Tsipras himself who, speaking to his supporters, said to explain his absence from the democratic front:
“They changed the law, not following the obvious, what we proposed, which is to add to the existing law an express sentence that those who are finally convicted of the crimes of 157 of the Penal Code will not be able to their parties or those who have such in their combinations, let them go down. They didn’t do that.”
Was this the SYRIZA proposal or is the president muddying the waters? Because SYRIZA’s proposal says the opposite and probably Alexis Tsipras confused them, confirming those who say that he is restless and making his electoral campaign by force. Probably because he knows that he will lose. What did the sentence say?
“Political parties, whose organization and action do not serve the free functioning of the democratic state within the meaning of article 29, paragraph 1 of the Constitution, do not have the right to form associations. Such are political parties whose statutory provisions or ideological statements or action policy incites, provokes, incites, or incites acts or actions that may cause discrimination, hatred, or violence against a person or group of persons identified on the basis of race, color, religion, ancestry, national or ethnic origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, characteristics of gender or disability, as well as persons whose head or member of an administrative body has been sentenced, even in first instance, for the crimes of articles 187 and 187 A of the Penal Code”.
He added: “This case applies even to an ordinary member, if he has committed the crimes in the previous paragraph with a Nazi or racist motive, in the context of party action or on its behalf.” In other words, in two words, he invited the judges to judge whether a party is Nazi or racist. Here you see sacks that have been opened, so the wording was rejected. In any case, what Mr. Tsipras said to his followers, that it was enough to add a sentence, etc., leaving traces of intrigue, is not true.
And what else did the SYRIZA amendment say? And the president forgot this, perhaps because unlike the economy, he is not doing well with the law:
“To attend their trial, political parties, associations of individuals or other civil society organizations, as well as all voters, have the right to submit a memorandum with documentary evidence to Department A1 of the Supreme Court of Justice to date. following the expiration of the term”. term of article 34 paragraph 1 of this law”. Therefore, the parties and civic associations should send a memorandum for the assistance of the Supreme Court, so that it can block the fascists. But what it did not do.
Mr. Tsipras said the rest: “They gave the jurisdiction to a closed group of judges to decide who can go down and who can’t.” Even if this is paradoxical. Who should decide on the right to participate in the elections? Another from section A of the Supreme Court? We are completely confused by the president.
Let’s go back to the SYRIZA amendment and make a point: “The attendance of the cases of the previous paragraphs is controlled ex officio by Department A1 of the Supreme Court.” As you said? So your own amendment delegated the power to decide who is and is not eligible to participate in elections to Section A of the Supreme Court? So why the criticism? What did he mean by this weird stuff about a “closed group of judges”?
But everything is explained. Just read Alexis Tsipras carefully. What bothers the head of SYRIZA is, as he said in a recent intervention, that “a bomb fell on the apartment building on the right” and other parties got a red card and did not participate in the elections (Ms. Emfietzoglou, Bogdanos, Latinopoulou , Nikolopoulos), while others, “will drop those who have declared their allegiance to Mitsotakis by the day after the elections.” He finally spoke honestly.
Let us leave aside that those who were cut, with the exception of the Kasidiaris Greeks, were cut for formal reasons (sign, emblem, ballot paper, etc.), as always happens in elections. Leave it to the fact that no one has declared allegiance to Mitsotakis and Mitsotakis has declared that he will not form a government except with his own majority and his own deputies. (Could a government run for even one day, with a vote of confidence from far-right fringe parties? It would not be a cooperative government, but political self-manipulation by Kyriakos Mitsotakis.)
So what does Tsipras’ statement reveal?
That what really bothers him is that formations of the right and extreme right are not participating in the elections, to take a percentage away from New Democracy.
Will it be unfair for me to assume that this is why you did not submit a memorandum for Kasidiarios SYRIZA? Why did you want him to run in the election, even if he didn’t get any New Democracy votes? And to make it even more difficult for Mitsotakis to form an independent government?