Before we begin to analyze why we feel that Karamanlis supporters slammed this proposal we need to note that we still do not know how the conservative New Democracy party will respond to Avramopoulos' possible candidacy and whether or not it will continue to support the candidacy of Stavros Dimas, (since he failed to be elected in the previous three votes in December).
We also want to note that there are quite a few voices in the European Peoples’ Party who are apparently discontent with this development, as it could mean that the center-right would lose a valuable officer, who could in the future be replaced by someone from the radical left. Avramopoulos’ replacement in the Commission may also receive a different portfolio.
On its part, the government has yet to reveal its cards on this issue and from what we learn government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis has denied any agreement for Avramopoulos being a candidate at all. In fact he insists that for now the government’s priorities lie in restoring Greece’s place in Europe and preparing its policy statement, but as we all know Papoulias' term ends in March and whether SYRIZA likes it or not they will have to lay down their cards at one point or another.
The same holds true at New Democracy.
So here is why HellasFrappe believes that Karamanlis supporters got angered upon hearing his name being suggested by SYRIZA and ANEL for the position of President of the Republic. Those who know the former prime minister find it ridiculous if not laughable that he would accept, as do hundreds of thousands of his supporters who were even angered by this possibility. This is because the role of the President is solely ceremonial and has been since the 1986 constitutional reform (under Andreas Papandreou) and this is something that would only benefit the "business as usual" oligarchs of Greece who till this day find him a threat.
In a few words, the President of the Hellenic Republic is the nominal commander-in-chief of the Greek Armed Forces and occupies the first place in our country's order of precedence but his position was totally stripped of power by the late Andreas Papandreou government. The Greek Constitution of 1974 vested him with considerable powers on paper, but PASOK's Andreas Papandreou reduced his powers with a 1986 constitutional amendment, and this is why Karamanlis supporters are opposed to his his candidacy.
Frappers should realize that five years (+) after resigning as New Democracy leader, the same cartels who lived in fear during his term in office, are continuing to limit his power because they are afraid that Karamanlis can offer the average voter in Greece an alternative form of governance without their interference, or worse yet HOPE. And they should be afraid, because he can! Till this day many can attribute many things to his MPs but there is no proof whatsoever that would discredit his competence and patriotism for Greece. Karamanlis was toppled because of his stance on the Bourgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline, his tight relations with Vladimir Putin, his stance on the destructive Annan peace plan against Cyprus and certainly for his loud NO to the accession of FYROM to NATO. (It should be reminded that at that same summit a loud NO was voiced by Ukraine as well... and look a the situation in Ukraine today.) All this and more is why the "establishment" wants Karamanlis in a safe place, where he will not be able to be in the forefront of developments - especially now since we are beginning to slice Greece's energy pie ( each interest of which is based on a variety of reasons) .
Unfortunately the political game in Greece does not play ball with logic. Shady interests use mechanisms to manipulate the truth to such an extent that lies are twisted to sound like truths and they do this easily through their newspapers, radio, television and news sites. In simple words Greek oligarchs and all those forces who want Karamanlis out of the way, with a limited amount of powers to monitor them, still till this day use PROPAGANDA to push their agendas so that they can continue to operate as usual.
There is just one little problem with this today, people have caught on to their manipulation and lies. In fact today people know that Karamanlis refused to bow to these well-known "cartels" for all the reasons we saw unfold before us over the last few years, or after the signing of the First Memorandum. In fact most conservatives, and especially those who doubted Karamanlis in the 2009 elections, today have admitted that because he was toppled because he did not succumb to all these forces. So much so that his credibility as a politician was questioned, his political career was shattered into pieces and there was even an attempted assassination against his life.
Friends, several years ago, the PROPAGANDA machine named PASOK (and all the mechanisms that operated it) worked feverishly to tarnish the reputation of Karamanlis, and today the same mechanism is working with the same "cartels" again but with other forces with a plan to exterminate Karamanlis from the political world -or at the very least keep him silent and without any power-.
These individuals are well known in political circles and have on more than one occasion flip-flopped from being supporters of Andreas Papandreou, to supporters of Costas Simitis, on to George Papandreou, then to Evangelos Venizelos and now to SYRIZA. In fact these interests will do anything it takes to keep Karamanlis out of speaking because they know that when socialists rule, they will always fatten their bank wallets more easily.
One of the tools that is commonly used by these cartels are the "Ta Nea" and "To Vima" newspapers. In fact these newspapers have been used for decades to spread falsifications against the conservative New Democracy party. We see this happen every so often in their weekend editions. Up until several months ago they were even claiming that Karamanlis' government was largely responsible for leading the country into the arms of the Troika, or at least opening a door to it and today because they fear his active presence in ND they are pushing for his candidacy as President of the Republic.
There are some that might disagree with our analysis about Karamanlis' time in government so HellasFrappe will give them the facts. The truth must be told about the damned Greek economy because lies will always be lies, but numbers, official data, facts and reports cannot be interpreted (to suit anyone's needs) and are indisputable. As we all know, history and numbers, cannot be challenged, cannot be interpreted and they most certainly cannot be ignored!
So here goes: In 2004 PASOK left a total debt of 184,514.30 billion euros and maturing bonds: Interest on the debts that were generated by the PASOK governments and unfortunately paid by the conservative government of Costas Karamanlis were: In 2004 9.464 billion euros, in 2005 9.774 billion euros, in 2006 9.589 billion euros, in 2007 9.750 billion euros, in 2008 10.500 billion euros.
On top of this Karamanlis also inherited the more than 10 billion euros from PASOK's controversial armaments program (which today is being investigated by authorities), the scandalous and excessive debts from the (Gianna Aggelopoulou Daskalis') Athens 2004 Olympic Games and last but not least Costas Simitis 2001 SWAP with Goldman Sachs of some 5 billion euros (as well as all the shady deals for various security systems).
Now that you are starting to get a better picture of things keep in mind that expenditures on interest rates do not drop because some leftists claim that they do because only an IDIOT could say that. If a government bond was 5% in 2003 for example, and was paid at that interest that year, it was also the same for all previous years. In other words, all those who slammed Karamanlis and today are pushing for his candidacy actually believe that the interest rates on the loans that were made during the socialist's time in governance, -and there were a lot of them- remained at 5% and never rose!
So before we are accused of being anti-Leftists, let us look at the FACTS and then you can all judge for yourselves on who is more responsible about the current state of the Greek economy.
FACT - When PASOK came to power in 1981, it received an economy with public debt 32.8% of GDP!
FACT - When PASOK lost to the New Democracy Party in 1989, the Greek deficit had already reached 14.3% and the national debt was at 61.5% of the GDP. In other words, the socialists, or PASOK, more than doubled the national debt - all this within only eight years of rule under the Andreas Papandreou government. (Imagine how these numbers mounted when the large works began to take place around the country and how high they reached with the pricey Athens 2004 Olympic Games).
But the buck does not stop there. The truth gets even uglier.
Before PASOK fell out of power -or in 1989-, it had given state debt guarantees to local authorities and public utility companies, which several years down the road forced the Greek national debt to reach an astronomical 100% of the GDP.
Some can confirm this easily by googling the press reports at the time and specifically when the Coalition Government of Zolotas could not find the sufficient funds needed in order to pay public sector wages and pensions. (All thanks to eight years of rule from Andreas Papandreou!)
Fast forward to the period 2004-2009 and Karamanlis' rule. The negative reports that were published in the anti-Karamanlis papers which today want him out of the way and in the inactive presidential seat claim that his government generated a further 100 billion in debt. This is another lie. The papers fail to explain how and why this debt was generated. But we will because we stick to the facts!
During the period 2004 - 2009 the Greek State paid:
-62 billion euros in interest from previous loans (mostly generated by both the Andreas Papandreou and Costas Simitis PASOK governments)!
- The conservatives were also forced to pay 10 billion euros in payments which were never recorded in State budgets that were drafted from the Simitis government periods 1996 to 2004!
- The conservatives were forced to pay almost 15 Billion in commissions to the armed forces from decisions that were taken from previous PASOK governments.
- The conservatives were forces to pay 6 Billion euros to the hospitals as well that were never paid by the PASOK governments. In fact the EU drafted a legislation in 2004 to legalize the balance sheets of hospitals so that this 6 billion can be paid.
Get out your claculators... The total my friends is 93 billion Euros!
Obviously the debt which sent Greece into an economic hurricane was not the fault of Costas Karamanlis and this needs to be told. Add it up yourselves and you will agree with us as well.
Frappers, Costas Simitis and his PASOK party not only generated a HUGE debt before falling out of power in 2004, but they also made sure to collect prepayment of future state revenues and as such deprived this revenue from ever being absorbed by future governments!
Let us give you a few more examples so that there are no doubts:
- According to article 14 of Law 2801 of 2000, PASOK received prepayment of future revenue of 4 billion Euros.
- On December 13, 2001, PASOK granted a right to prepayment of 355 million euros to the offshore company "Aeolos" from the Community Support Funds (CSF) until 2009!
- In 2000 the PASOK government of Simitis received prepayment of revenues from the state lottery worth more than 650 million euros.
- The PASOK government of Costas Simtis also received prepayment of future revenues from the 3rd CSF program worth more than 2 billion euros!
In this round, the PASOK government of Costas Simitis received prepayment of revenues totalling more than 7 billion euros (meaning that these revenues would never enter state funds in the years to follow)!
As for the public sector hirings. This indeed is a joke as well. New Democracy, and especially the Karamanlis government, was accused of making tens of thousands of public sector hirings and some may recall George Papandreou accusing Karamanlis of creating a "blue" state in some pre-election speeches in 2009.
That is another crock of sh***t. When Karamanlis came to power, the EU forced his government to place at least 80 percent of these workers in the public sector permanently, because their rights were being violated all the previous years from the PASOK governments. And all he did was comply to the EU ruling.
Unfortunately old dogs do not learn new tricks, most of these workers returned to PASOK and some of them still support the party till this day and today these same hardliners are in SYRIZA! Those who work for the public sector know very well that the unions that represent most of the public sector workforce are -till this day- governed by leftist unions. And we ask... If there were so many hirings made by Karamanlis' government -and if he had truely created a Blue State- then why hasn't the power shifted in the unions? Why hasn't a conservative unionist ever been appointed to a high ranking post? Simple common sense will give you the answers. But of course the "cartels", overlook all the above facts and stick to what they know best and that is PROPAGANDA and disallowing this truth to ever reach you the voter.
Over the past few years they take pleasure of continually bashing Karamanlis because they know, and fear, that he can still give Greeks an alternative form of governance that would weaken their privileged lives. They are afraid that with Karamanlis in power people will once again have HOPE instead of feeling helpless and powerless. They just never banked on the fact that Karamanlis' supporters are well prepared not to allow them and armed with knowledge and facts!
This is why Karamanlis' name was tossed in the air. On the other hand, Avramopoulos would be great in this position because he loves the spotlight, adores being in the public eye, and is more ceremonial in character.
Signed
The HellasFrappe Team
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