To understand George you have to first come to grips with his sense of the word "reality" and if you do... make sure you have a subscription to some sort of sedative... because you will need it. Following this you should be alright, anything will make sense.
Over the past 20+ months we have heard so many things about the "shady" dealings of the Papandreou family, and especially George Papandreou but we have yet to see a prosecutor dare to pick up on at least one issue and actually review it. (Well... in Greece that is... because there are investigations going on in Europe). We know about the gist of the allegations that Papandreou and members of his team, presided over the sale of 1.3 billion dollars worth of credit default swap contracts (CDS on Greek sovereign debt) in December of 2009, shortly after coming to power. The 1.3 billion dollars worth of insurance protecting against a Greek default was bought during the spring and summer of the same year, by the Hellenic Postbank, a public banking arm of the Greek government.
Till this day it is still unclear what the intentions of the Postbank were when it purchased the credit protection. We assume that the previous government under the leadership of Costas Karamanlis understood that Greece was headed towards a fiscal crisis, otherwise they would have never purchased the insurance. Also, we know that if the move was initially made with the intention of reaping private profit, or simply as a hedge by the government itself against it’s own default.
This alone screams "GREEK JUSTICE SYSTEM... INVESTIGATE ME" but does the Greek justice system investigate any of this? Nope....
Or what about the rain of accusations from parliamentary MP Panos Kammenos against the brother of George Papandreou, Andreas, who is apparently part of the I4cense’company which is based in Switzerland and which gives adivce on CDS contracts? Or the Swiss daily report from "La Liberte" claiming that this institute has received funding from the EU, the Hellenic Republic as well as Siemens (Note: German Siemens is in the heart of an international corruption scandal which also gave kickbacks and undeclared funds to Greek political officails - most of whom are in the PASOK party).
And let us not even touch the dealings of the other brother Nikos... who has been also accused by Panos Kammenos for jet-setting to Qatar and doing wannabe fast track business on behalf of the Greek state when in all actuality he has no position of power. All this of course with the prime minister's jet, the cost of which is paid by the average Greek citizen.
You would think that it would take a tsunami, or some other super-natural force to shake our judges and prosecutors a bit so that they can open a probe into all these scandalous accusations... But do they? NOPE!
Maybe its because Papandreou has parliamentary immunity. In case you didn't know... back in the 90s today's Minister of Finance Evangelos Venizelos revised the Greek Constitution with a new amendment claiming that members of Parliament are immune from criminal prosecution, arrest or detention while in office. What is even more insane is that they are also immune from having to provide any information to any authority regarding their legislative functions and deliberations.
So even if our justice system suddenly woke up from their coma, they would not be able to ask George anything...
Now comes the good part, and it might sound silly, but if the FLOOD of SCANDALS surrounding Papandreou did not bring him down, then the undeclared pool in his backyard just might!
You heard correctly. George apparently made a mistake of not declaring the pool in his "Pothen Esches" which is a formal document submitted to Parliament and supposedly states what assets and liquidity each politician has. Obviously citizens know that our 300 MPs lie (with the exception of one or two) but if you lie about it... and someone uncovers it... then you might lose your diplomatic immunity over it.
And if you lose your diplomatic immunity, (which is one of the reasons why the Greek justice system has probably not probed the accusations made by Kammenos so far,) then surely you can be taken to trial, then God knows what else will suddenly surface.
Can you imagine that!
The revelation which was made by the "Avriani" newspaper claims that Papandreou declared the pool in his E9 (tax form) but forgot to include it in his "Pothen Exches". This small... but minor lie, might actually cost him his parliamentary seat!
It is really kind of funny if you think about it!
In fact everything about this man is worth a bottle of Valium. Just yesterday he gave a 50/50 performance at PASOK's meeting of the political council. The aim of the meeting was to allow him to finally step down from his position as PASOK leader, but remember his performance in Parliament right after his other blockbuster idea of making us head for a referendum, when he asked his party to give him their confidence vote so he can step down from power? Well... if you made sense out of that performance then yesterday's performance should be a piece of cake for you. This absence of logic, or paranoia as we like to term it was surfaced yesterday and the general mood was complete dismay.
George actually proposed that he would withdraw from his seat as head of the PASOK party in two phases, and introduced the most ridiculous system of transition in the party's leadership. More exactly, Papandreou proposed that the party's parliamentary group elect its leader now as well as its prospective prime minister, and after the following national elections set up polls for the new president of the party with him maintaining that position until they are held.
Confused? So are we.... But he basically let them know that he is not stepping down... until after the next elections! Obviously his proposal was rejected by all... and to be quite frank the general mood after he suggested this ingenious and Georgish philosophy was "should I slash my wrists now, or should I not? Or is it better if I pull out my hair? What about the balcony... should I jump now or later?"
But like we have said many times... to understand George you have to first come to grips with the word "paranoia" ! Either that or get set to pay a therapist... there is no other way to make sense with this man!
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