By Penelope Galliou

For months now, the early polling and the rumors about early elections at regular intervals, one would say, that they could have released the “valve” of polarization in the political scene. Already on the very first day of the now official pre-election period, it defied every expectation of a civilized confrontation with arguments and political arguments. The pre-election “score” of the parties and especially the three biggest ones, sets the tone of a hard rock, which has just started with an unknown escalation and finale.

The tragic accident in Tempe did not seem to be enough to restrain the pre-election momentum of the government and the parties and their need to polarize and rally their party audiences, already exceeding the limits of political culture very early on.

From the Parliament, as long as it remains open until its dissolution for the elections, to the television windows, the radio frequencies and also the announcements of the parties, the polarization has penetrated everywhere, turning the pre-election confrontation from the very first day of this long period, into arena.

An arena in which everyone turns against everyone. The ND against SYRIZA, which voted for the simple proportional one at the risk of causing instability and misgovernance in the country, but also against PASOK and the refusal of Nikos Androulakis to clarify his position on any post-election collaborations.

SYRIZA against the government, which, according to Koumoundourou, is unconstitutionally trying to “ignore” the popular verdict of the first ballot and focus on the second elections.

PASOK, through its leader, turns against both ND and SYRIZA by rejecting the leaders of the two largest parties for the prime ministership of the country in the event of a post-election joint government.

And of course also the smaller parties that, for the time being, stay out of the competition and the discussion about cooperation governments, but they attack the bigger parties, trying to “catch” the disaffected, indignant or angry voters who turn their backs on the parties in power.

In just the first 24 hours since the start of the pre-election period, new issues for debate have entered the agenda of the political debate and new challenges have been formulated on both sides. Among the most important and those that do not seem to “go away” soon, is the case of the villa of Yiannis Ragousis in Paros, which caused sharp announcements by the ND and also the severe criticism of Adonis Georgiadis in the Parliament, who called on the SYRIZA MPs to stop ” to point the finger on moral issues”. While Yannis Ragousis, for his part, was accusing of cheap protectionism “from the government of the excessive and dark, individual loans of its members”.

Adonis Georgiadis added fuel to the fire of the premature escalation of political aggravation and from his speech at an event in which, citing even an ancient Greek dictionary, he tried to argue about the difference between “rights” and “lefts”, claiming that “left” metaphorically is the useless, the unhinged, the grouse… with SYRIZA returning the accusations by characterizing him as intolerant, divisive and far-right.

The escalation of the confrontation was also reflected in the Prime Minister’s speech in Glyfada where he spoke about the possibility of “political monstrosity” on May 22, stressing that “Those who say that a government will be formed on May 22 must tell us who they will work with. I had talk about the possibility of political monstrosity with Tsipras, Androulakis and Varoufakis. Can you imagine that? Whatever Alexis Tsipras says, the possibility mathematically exists,” he said, even calling the official opposition leader a comparison between the two four-year governments.

“Gauntlet” raised by Yanis Varoufakis stating that “it is monstrous for someone to want to govern and have 70-75% of the electorate against him” and added “also the other monster is for Mr. Tsipras to want to form a coalition government without programmatic convergence” pointing his arrows at the two “big ones”.

Under these circumstances, the pre-election period has just begun and continues…