My dear friends, good day to you!
There is a number that appears obsessively on today’s political scene. It is 15.
About 15 points separate New Democracy from the percentage that would allow it to safely claim self-sufficiency. About as much is needed by the Greek Left Alliance to catch up with ND and claim first place. That much and even more is the distance that PASOK must cover to achieve its own declared goal: to become the leading party, even by a margin of one vote.
This is not, obviously, a mathematical equation. It is an approximate depiction of political reality, which in any case remains fluid. But it shows the distance separating the parties’ declared goals from the distance the electorate is willing to travel.
The numbers are telling. Opinion Poll gives ND 31%, ELAS 15.9% and PASOK 12.1% in vote estimate, while Pulse gives 30.5%, 17% and 12% respectively in the allocation of the undecided. The two measurements differ in the details, but not in the overall picture: no one today is close to achieving their final goal.
And yet, everyone behaves as if they can achieve it on their own.
ND is asking for self-sufficiency and links its achievement to political stability. ELAS aspires to overturn the current balance and claim first place. PASOK has also set as its goal to win the elections, even by a margin of one vote.
Their goals are legitimate. The electorate, however, based on the polls, is not “doing them the favor.”
Because if the ballot box confirms, even approximately, today’s picture, the likely problem will not be who won the elections but who can form a government. A party’s first place does not automatically imply self-sufficiency, and a large distance from the second party does not by itself add the missing seats.
At this point, then, one would expect the discussion about coalitions to begin. Roughly the opposite is happening. The closer we get to the elections, the more the parties explain with whom they cannot or do not want to cooperate, already raising walls for the day after the ballot.
And all this while the political scene may become even more fragmented. The polls today measure neither a possible Samaras party nor the announced Kasidiaris movement, if it is able to participate in the elections. Both possibilities can alter today’s picture.
The problem, therefore, is not that the parties seek to increase their percentages. That is their job. Nor can anyone demand before the elections that they abandon their goals and divide up ministries.
The problem is the widespread refusal to discuss the obvious: what will happen if voters do not give anyone the power to govern alone.
Because even if the country undergoes the ordeal of a repeat ballot, no one is in a position to guarantee that it will provide the solution the first one did not. At that moment, moreover, the issue ceases to concern the parties’ electoral ambitions. It now concerns governability and, therefore, the fate of the country.
Everyone wants to govern. No one wants to cooperate. If the numbers do not change, one of the two will have to change.