A new political horizon is emerging. There are similarities between today's Greece and the Italy of 15 years ago. Then, major international and domestic changes brought about the crisis of a political system that was based on single-party governments or coalition governments centered always around the Christian Democrats. But the discovery of illegal funding of politicians and parties delivered the final blow to the system.
Clean hands:
We are experiencing a period of "Clean Hands" even if we do not have a Di Pietro. I hope the final conclusion will be different than in Italy. I hope the radical left will meet the challenge," declared Alekos Alavanos, head of the parliamentary group of SYRIZA (the Radical Left Coalition), in an interview published yesterday in the Greek Eleftherotypia newspaper. Alavanos, the chairman of SYRIZA until a few months ago and still the "brains" behind the coalition's recent dramatic rise in popularity, is sure that the long period of single party governments in Greece is finished. A new era of coalitions is starting, as single parties cannot govern without the controlling influence of smaller and more socially conscious parties. The emergence of a new political horizon in Greece has become very apparent due to the dramatic developments last week around the "Siemens scandal." Ever since 2006, when revelations in Germany showed that the giant company Siemens was keeping a large slush fund through which bribes were given domestically and abroad in order to secure industrial contracts, analysts were predicting a major political crisis in Greece. An unofficial list circulating among media circles showed that not only known politicians who served as ministers or close advisers during the long term of the socialist government of PASOK but also of the present center-right government of New Democracy were involved directly or indirectly in the disappearance of an estimated 100 million euros worth of bribes to win state contracts in Greece. For the Siemens executives it seems that the country that organized the Olympic Games of 2004 at a cost of about $10-12 billion (more than double the initial forecast of 4.5 billion) was a valuable customer for large lucrative contracts.
Who got what and how, would have remained a topic for a few insistent journalists, if it was not for the German prosecutors who are creating an enormous legal dossier on the corruption network that the Siemens executives had set up around the world, with bank accounts and high-standing beneficiaries. A total of 1.3 billion euros ($2 billion) from Siemens coffers seems to have disappeared into various funds, 100 million of it is estimated to have found its way to Greek beneficiaries. With the situation apparently outside the control of the Greek political and judicial authorities, the original investigation is now generated from Germany. And the news that comes out from there is already creating the first major shocks in the opposition party. Tomorrow, a high-ranking party executive, Thedodoros Tsoukatos, a close confidant of former Prime Minister Costas Simitis, whose nick name "the general" indicates his strategic role in party affairs, is going to testify to the Greek special prosecutor about the issue of 1 million Deutsche Marks sent by Siemens in 1999 to a friend's offshore account to end up in the party's coffers. Tsoukatos claims that whatever he did was not for his own benefit but for the benefit of the party. The leader of the party, George Papandreou, has already stripped him of party membership, as he did with a former minister whose name is also implicated in the same probe. Papandreou, who is still struggling for credibility as a leader both among his party and among the Greek voters, now finds the opportunity to promote a "clean image" against a dark past when he was not at the helm of the party. However, his opponents are pointing out that he, too, was a member of that "sinful" government, albeit as a successful foreign minister.
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