Galery

1

The debate, which was actually not a debate but a series of boring monologues, between the six party leaders in Greece continued for 3 hours and a half. The boring “talk show” will most likely not change the sociological surveys, which are registering a stable lead for the socialist opposition. Neither the politicians nor the journalists managed to surprise with anything the viewers. Their attitude was predictable, the questions expected and the answers – long worded and empty.

Present at ERT’s studio were PM Kostas Karamanlis from New Democracy, Georgios Papandreou from PASOK, Aleka Papariga from the Greek communist party, Alexis Tzipras from the coalition of the radical leftists and Nikos Hrisogelos from the Green ecologists. Host of the debate was Maria Houkli from NET and the questions were asked by Nikos Evangelatos from Antena TV, Andonis Schroeder from Alpha TV, Pavlos Tzimas from Mega TV, Sia Kosioni from Skai TV, Emilios Lyatzos from Star TV and Andreas Konstandatos from Alter TV.

The six leaders faced the journalists’ questions form the following areas: economy, social and labor subjects, foreign policy, education, environment and public customer services. Each journalist had the right for one main and one elaborative question.

The carried out debate shows that a direct discussion between political opponents, where they directly argue, bring forth arguments, react to opposing arguments and finally convince the viewers in one thing or another, is unknown in Greece. Instead Greek politicians, and also journalists prefer to hide behind the tactic “the more unclear we speak, the fewer mistakes we make”. And the result is what we saw. Boring, very boring.

“No winners in the impressions battle” said the first page headline of Vima newspaper, which comments on the result of the debate. Analysis proves that the debate did not live up to the expectations for a substantial dialogue even thought the given time for Q&A took the attention of most viewers and broke the monologue framework.

PM Kostas Karamanlis followed the beaten track of the pre-election campaign and bet on his interesting stage presence. He used his time to prove that it is doubtful that his opponent will manage to deal with his promises regarding the economic program. Mr. Karamanlis spent less time defending his own actions, according to the analytical article in Vima.

On the other hand, PASOK leader Georgios Papandreou presented himself as the “calm power” and spent his time expressing critiques towards the government. Meanwhile he managed to mention his proposals and the position of his party regarding governing of Greece, by saying that “if the people want”, he is ready to take the responsibility.

Chief Secretary of the communist party Aleka Papariga defended her party’s positions and insisted on stressing on the differences between the party she represents and the other political powers.

The leader of the leftist coalition SIRIZA Alexis Tzipras participated in a pre-election TV debate for the first time and quickly managed relax. He tried to bring some dynamics into the debate by criticizing the policy of the governing New Democracy as well as the program of PASOK.

The chairman of the right party LAOS Georgios Karadzaferis tried to “win the applause” with famous statements but he mainly targeted his critiques against Mr. Karamanlis and Mr. Papandreou. Greek ecologists’ leader Nikos Hrisogelos managed to clearly express his opinion and answer all the asked questions.

At 08:00PM today is the start of the second show – the TV debate between the two main players on the elections on October 4 – Kostas Karamanlis and Georgios Papandreou. “In two weeks we will have a new government. Everything until now shows that this government will be made out of PASOK and PM will be Georgios Papandreou. Of course, a person can never predict the future and sometimes it is not even good luck to do so. But for now there is not one logically thinking person, who believes that New Democracy will manage to turn thing around. Maybe even the debate between the two leaders tonight will not make much of a difference…” says Richardos Someritis for Vima newspaper.