It Can Happen in Democracies Too, or How a Political Caste Can Insulate Itself from the Electorate

The defining feature of a representative/ parliamentary democracy is the regular change of government as mandated by an informed electorate. Flow of information, then, is crucial in maintaining a democracy, since it is crucial for the government to actually be answerable to the electorate. Conversely, a political caste which is self-serving and self-perpetuating will inevitably attempt to curb that flow of information, in order to prevent any new players in the political scene to appeal directly to the people. Should that  endeavor succeed, a closed ruling - political class is formed, open only to those select few who pose no real danger to the establishment and who, in fact, submit to it and can only aspire to rise through its ranks. The good of the country or voter intent is not even an afterthought. For anyone wishing to serve their country through politics, the dilemma becomes: join us, against your better judgment or even your conscience, or stay in the political wilderness, your opinions or proposals or positions forever remaining in the sidelines, where nobody will ever hear of them or you, much less consider voting for you.

Well, that is exactly what has happened in Greece. Under the pretext (typical!) of preventing undue influence of money in political campaigns, Greek election law puts caps on how much money a candidate or a political party can spend; and on how much a candidate or a political party can receive as campaign contribution from an individual. But the legislation does not stop there: it even places limits on how many times, during election season, a candidate may appear on the TV or in the radio - and even (in the case of municipal elections) goes on to regulate that a candidate for mayor may only make one appearance in a website within the four months preceding the election (election dates for local elections are fixed). And, even more than that, the limitations during election season for national or European elections vary, in accordance with the votes each party received in the previous elections - the law provides that political parties are not allowed to buy airtime during election season; that airtime is provided free of charge by the TV and radio channels; and that the Minister of Interior shall allot the time between the political parties on TV according to the standard of relative equality and that no political party can have more airtime than that, which is provided for by the ministerial decision. "Relative equality" means that the Minister should allot more time to established parties and much less to newly-formed parties, as has been the case in all elections conducted under this legislation (since 2002). And, remember, smaller parties are not even allowed to buy, on their own, time to match the airtime alloted to the first party by the ministerial decision. That means, of course, that the electorate does not even get to know the existence of smaller or newly-formed parties. This is not just curbing the flow of information, it's practically killing it.

Did you say anything about how that would be a blatant violation of the First Amendment, had the elections been held in the United States? Well, the Greek Constitution, as amended by the Parliament in 2001 (the same parliament that voted the 2002 legislation) provides, in art. 29 § 2, that the law may prohibit certain types of pre-electoral promotion. It seems that the political caste has managed to take such prohibitions even outside the scope of judicial review (checks and balances in Greece? Ha, ha!). That results in a political class, completely insulated from the electorate, controlling the country and giving away jobs to its cronies; a political caste completely cut off from society and lacking in elementary decency, since joining it requires throwing one's decency completely away. Of course, meritocracy in a system like this would only sound as a joke.*

This political caste is currently collapsing under its own ineptitude and corruption. Greek economy has been driven into chaos, mainly because of the political caste's handling out various entitlements to an inefficient bureaucracy and a cabal of well-connected public procurers. Its natural conclusion seems to be its eradication, when Greece defaults on its debts, since they will no longer have a public purse to control and will no longer be able to pay pensions and civil servants' salaries, or anyone else for that matter. Such failure, in a country, where 60% of the economy is either directly controlled by the State sector or directly related to it, will undoubtedly provide the sort of information, that no legislative means would be able to block: that the ruling political class has made us all broke.


* A case is pending before the Council of State in Greece, challenging the constitutionality of the aforementioned provisions; a decision is expected any day.