This week Greece is celebrating 50 years of democracy, the restoration of which followed the collapse of the seven-year junta that ended disastrously with the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in July ’74.
The return of the exiled former prime minister Konstantinos Karamanlis, who was to serve an additional six years as PM and then ten as President of the Republic, marked the period described as Metapolitefsi, which however one sees it, has been the most free and democratic one in the nation’s history, both for the lives of individual citizens as well as the functioning of institutions.
This success is largely due to Karamanlis, who in the eyes of most (including his political opponents), embodied the characteristics of a statesman who saved his country; who took it from the abyss and, in record time, transformed a divided nation still living with the scars of civil war, into an equal member of the European Union (then Economic Community).
He also pushed through a new liberal Constitution in 1975, a major achievement that proved critically important in the decades that followed,.
Throughout the five decades that followed, all the elections that took place regularly were free and fair, and despite periods of increased polarization – what has become the norm in most western democracies – the institutions endured.
Even during the deep financial crisis of the previous decade, and despite the unfortunate, but unavoidable heavy dose of populism that prevailed, the political system showed reassuring maturity.
Different parties came to power democratically, and at the end the country positively surprised many of its critics.
An independent judiciary and a free media landscape are also major developments of this period. Obviously, a lot remains to be done to get to the level the country aspires to and deserves.
Rule of law has not been a priority, to put it diplomatically, and for journalists being free does not necessarily translate into being factually correct in their reporting or objective in their analyses.
It is true that in assessing these fifty years one can easily identify numerous misgivings; abuse of political power that remains entangled with economic power, institutional deficits, processes that have to be fixed; the need for transparency.
But overall, this is a different country. Socially modern, politically stable, economically growing, military strong and able to defend itself against any potential aggressor.
The Greek Republic can be proud of its successful and smooth transition from authoritarianism to democracy. That is not to say that everything has been right, let alone ideal. But, compared to the past, the last fifty years can easily be described as the best we have ever experienced.
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