Democracy

Greece has before it a horizon of two and a half years without any electoral distractions. This time must be used creatively, in favor of progress, in an international environment that is already full of challenges. 

Sunday marked 51 years since the Athens Polytechnic uprising, but also half a century from the milestone of peaceful democratic existence: the first national elections after the fall of the 1967-74 junta. Both anniversaries are good opportunities to ponder the collective accomplishments of the longest period of peace, freedom and - despite the troughs - economic growth in this country.

Stefanos Kasselakis, who recently split from the leftist SYRIZA opposition to form his own political party, announced on Monday that the name of the new venture will be decided through a three-day open vote from November 20 to 22.

The painful lesson of the US election is that no popular discontent, no matter how regressive it may seem, no matter how violently expressed, should simply be dismissed as "extreme." Even when those phobias are irrational, they shape political realities.

Democracy breathes and survives when there are bulwarks and counterweights to the excesses, antics, illegalities and the will of the "leader." Without them democracies are doomed to languish or die because they lack either the oxygen or the light of transparency. The United States has for decades been the West's "beacon" when it comes to institutional countermeasures to authoritarianism.

The Greek government received a clear mandate just 16 months ago. The mandate was to implement its program - that is, to promote the reforms it had advocated.

The mandate was not to indulge in navel-gazing and waste energy on internal strife and vendettas that belong to the previous century. Nor to chase shadows of supposed national dangers.

Fifty years after the fall of the dictatorship of April 21 and the establishment of Democracy, the significance of posters as both an artistic and political creation gains particular relevance through the exhibition titled “Democracy on the Streets: Poster Exhibition 1967-1981,” organized by the Institute of Contemporary Greek Art, a branch of the National Gallery and Alexander Soutsos

At the Economist Impact conference in Athens Monday, MIT economist Daron Acemoglu stressed the importance of strong institutions in reinforcing democracy, shortly after being announced as a 2024 Nobel Prize winner in Economics.

With the United States, Russia and India heading to the polls this year, the 12th edition of the Athens Democracy Forum, aptly titled "Moment of Truth," focused on the upcoming electoral battles in those countries and others around the world, discussing the future of democracy, misinformation and the integrity of the elections.

The President of Greece, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, received the "City of Athens Democracy Award" on Wednesday from the Mayor of Athens, Haris Doukas, during the Athens Democracy Forum.