Zero seriousness

Wednesday’s TV debate between the candidates for the new SYRIZA leader did not garner the same attention as the corresponding debate held by PASOK, nor did it demonstrate the same level of seriousness.

This was not only due to the topics discussed but also to the political quality of the participants. Where else could one hear a candidate for the leadership of the second-largest party (by vote count) claim: “We have 5,000 wind turbines all over Greece spinning, 15 billion [euros in investment], and do you know how much electricity they produce? Zero. Because they still haven’t put in batteries.”

It wasn’t just Apostolos Gletsos, the soap-opera-actor-turned-politician, who, if nothing else, has hundreds of wind turbines in the region where he once served as a mayor, and should at least know the basics. Central Greece produces 2,314 MW (43% of the country’s total wind energy), followed by the Peloponnese with 671 MW (13%) and Eastern Macedonia-Thrace with 535 MW (10%).

There was also MP and former minister Pavlos Polakis, who claimed to be “good with numbers,” although he clearly didn’t mean the stopwatch he repeatedly ignored. For example, he said: “Israel’s response has long surpassed the threshold of legitimate self-defense. We’re talking about approximately 180,000 to 230,000 dead under the rubble of Gaza. That means 200,000 dead out of 2 million. That’s like our country losing 2 million out of 10. Here, you have to take a stand…”

The truth is that even one civilian death weighs heavily on the conscience of those shaped by humanism and the Enlightenment. But “before you take a stand,” you must learn to count, as the late French statesman Francois Mitterrand once said, which is the prerequisite for all politics. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, controlled by Hamas, declared on November 20 – the day of the debate – that, in the 13 months of war, a total of 43,985 Palestinians had been killed.

Not only did Polakis cite more than four times as many deaths in Gaza, but he also aligned himself with pro-Russia truthers regarding the war against Ukraine. “Yes, since we are in NATO, we would theoretically take the side of our allies,” he said. “But we had no reason to send armored personnel carriers, missiles and artillery from the islands or from specific areas and camps, and send them through the Czech Republic to the Azov Battalion in Ukraine.”

A mess in his head. Whatever Greece has sent to Ukraine was for replacement purposes, and there is an agreement for this. As for the “Azov Battalion,” where did that come from again?

Perhaps he would have preferred that we hadn’t even sent raisins, as some of his fellow comrades had suggested.