Mountain or sea?

by

It is not a dilemma regarding vacations or an excursion but about the place that will help the prime minister to think, “weigh” and decide the time of the upcoming elections

By Penelope Galliou

Over time, leaders have cultivated a myth surrounding the environment in which important decisions are made. After all, Kyriakos Mitsotakis himself, in other critical decisions about the political situation and course of the country, – like the election of the President of the Republic – had chosen to leave the tension of Athens and go to the mountains, as he is wont to say, to Metsovo. He had announced the same, speaking to journalists for this year’s Christmas, stating that from Metsovo, where he would go for the holidays, he would make the final decisions on when the polls would be held.

However, a change of plans led the prime minister instead of the mountain, to the sea and specifically to Chania. “Upheaval” that is difficult to interpret if instead of postponing the “mountain” the final decisions on the elections are also postponed or if it will ultimately be the sea air that will “cleanse” the thinking and judgment of Kyriakos Mitsotakis in order to launch the developments.

Besides, the prime minister also has the example of his father, Konstantinos Mitsotakis, who during his long political journey, chose Konstantinos Mitsotakis climbed Madara, in the White Mountains and as a walker with his Cretan strabokatsuna, he watched the political future of the government and of his faction and made the crucial decisions for it.

However, the majority of the leaders who managed the fate of Greece and the succession of their parties had their own “mistakes”, with Konstantinos Karamanlis in 1980, as reported by the newspapers of the time and the few electronic media of the time, he had chosen the Rhodes and his favorite sport, golf, with clarity and unaffected judgment to deliver the prime minister’s ring to Georgios Ralli.

Andreas Papandreou preferred Crete and his otherwise secular beloved Elounda, which functioned as a sanctuary and helped him make serious and critical decisions. Myths or rumors, respectively, many times wanted the president of PASOK, instead of leaving Athens to make his decisions, he created the conditions he wanted, listening to his beloved Rita Sakellariou, while the same rumors claim that in 1974, the decision not to leave Greece because of the low percentage he got in the first post-colonial elections, dancing a heavy lonely zeibekiko in Tsitsanis.

On the contrary, the “technocratic” and practical character of Kostas Simitis did not look for a special environment and conditions to make serious decisions, but calculations and schedules were enough to move forward.

Kostas Karamanlis, for his part, was accused by his political opponents of indecisiveness, on the occasion of the measures he did not take, before the economic crisis “exploded” in Greece. In any case, a place of contemplation for the former prime minister of the ND was Magganari of Ios, which he met in his youth from his uncle, the founder of New Democracy and became a hermitage and refuge for his nephew.

For Giorgos Papandreou, on the other hand, the conditions that followed after assuming the prime ministership, were perhaps so suffocating that they did not allow him to acquire preferences for where and how he would make decisions. What is certain, however, is that gymnastics and sports were always an outlet for the former PASOK prime minister.

The conditions that Antonis Samaras was called upon to manage immediately and effectively were also suffocating, with the result that during his prime ministership he was forced to take all the critical decisions – which were many – somewhere between Athens and Brussels. However, his hometown, Pylos, is always a source of inspiration for the former prime minister.

Finally, Alexis Tsipras has proven that his decisions are made mainly within Attica and at his retreat in Sounio, but several times a visit to his village in Arta may have been decisive.

In any case, “Sunday short celebration” and this celebration of the Republic, as we usually call the holding of the elections, will not be long in coming, as in a few days we will enter 2023, which is the constitutionally determined election year.​​

You May Also Like

Recommended for you