Excluded from elections: Most parties to ND’s political right
Dear Member,
This is our weekly round-up from Greece.
Greece ranked 107th in the Reporters Without Borders annual index. With its score deteriorating, the country gained one place mainly due to Chad’s free fall. The government called RSF ‘unreliable.’ Then, the national news agency buried the news.
Two of the six journalists moderating the political election debate among party leaders are connected with kinship to ruling ND officials. Debate strict rules were set by an ‘inter-party committee’, with journalists not even allowed a free question. The government’s latest gift to mainstream TV channels was some 9 million euros because… of the Ukraine war.
Fourteen out of 50 parties who filed an application to run for elections were either banned from the Top Court or excluded because their application didn’t go through the Singular Logic electronic system, which manages the procedure. Most of them stand politically to the ND right. Also, this is the first time the elections procedure is managed by Singular Logic after the company had been bought by a decades-old friend of the Mitsotakis family, reports note.
It’s official: Greece is worse by far as media freedom than Orban’s Hungary.
Reporters Without Borders published this week their annual Media Freedom Index. Greece comes last of the EU countries, in a disgraceful 107th place (Si apre in una nuova finestra), performing worse than countries such as Thailand, Qatar, Senegal, and Haiti. Interesting detail: Greece has been elevated one place (last year, the country featured 108th in the index). However, this was not due to improving its score, which slightly deteriorated (55.2 from 55.52). It was due to the vast deterioration of Chad’s ranking.
Moreover, the gap between Greece and the rest of the EU has widened — it is now 23 places behind second-worst Malta, which improved its score in this year’s ranking. It is illustrative that Orban’s Hungary is ranked 72nd.
What is striking, however, is that the EU has not taken restrictive measures for Greece like those for Hungary and Poland. Why would that be?
As the main reasons for Greece’s rock-bottom score, the RSF cited journalists’ surveillance with spyware, abusive lawsuits (SLAPPs), insufficient legal protections, government interference in media, and the yet-unsolved murder of veteran crime reporter Giorgos Karaïvaz in 2021.
It shall be noted that it was only last week that the arrest of two suspects concerning Karaivaz’s murder was announced. However, the case remains unresolved. According to a well-informed report (Si apre in una nuova finestra)published this week by the daily Kathimerini, high-ranking Hellenic Police officers with full knowledge of the case file “express the opinion that the evidence could be further enhanced by physically surveilling the suspects and using technological means. And note that the decision to submit the file a few days ago had been taken on a political level and does not follow strict police criteria.” What’s more, “with the investigation ongoing, specifically in 2022, the Greek Police renewed a 50-year-old’s license to carry a weapon, who is described in the jury documents as a member of the group that carried out journalist Giorgos Karaivaz’s murder plan.”
As for SLAPPs, Documento editor won (Si apre in una nuova finestra)a major SLAPP case this week. He had been sued by current government ministers who even threatened him in public – in the parliament – to put him in jail. Vaxevanis was arrested and accused of defamation after he reported in 2017 that in 2014 the health ministry (through the national public health organization), under ND government, awarded a direct contract without a tender to a company belonging to the wife of Greece’s central bank chief to organize a health event.
The Greek ruling New Democracy party reacted strongly to the RSF report. Its spokesman Akis Skertsos referred (Si apre in una nuova finestra) to an “apparent lack of elemental reliability in the evaluation criteria.”
“According to RSF, press freedom flourishes in military and authoritarian regimes or in countries torn by civil wars, such as Burkina Faso, which is ranked 58th in this year’s press freedom ranking, Guinea, which is at 85, Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau at 74 and 78 respectively”, Skertsos said in a statement. “On the contrary, according to the same organization, the press ‘suffers’ in European democracies that have a deep-rooted respect for the freedom and independence of journalists, such as Greece, which ranks in 107th place!” he added.
According to Skertsos (Si apre in una nuova finestra), “Freedom of the Press is a severe democratic achievement to leave it to ‘reporters without borders,’ who, contrary to their name, live in closed borders of ideas.”
How did the National News Agency APE-MPE (under the PM’s wing) cover the RSF Index? As EfSyn observed (Si apre in una nuova finestra):
a.The title does not concern Greece but Peru, Senegal, Haiti, and Indonesia.
b.There is only a line for Greece, citing just the ranking, while for Senegal, it is writing about the deterioration of safety conditions for journalists.
c.It (Si apre in una nuova finestra) reiterates several times that RSF is an NGO (i.e., the Greek government has demonized NGOs, especially those conserved with migrants and refugees).
d. The news item is nowhere to be found on the website; it is only available to the email APE sent to its subscribers.
Who wants the media to be free? Especially during elections
This week’s decision on the debate (10 May) with the participation of all political parties leaders and how it will be conducted just came to verify Greece’s 107th ranking.
In an apparent conflict of interest, one of the six journalists who will moderate the debate is Sia Kosioni, the wife of Athens’ mayor Kostas Bakoyannis, elected with ND, who is the PM’s nephew and son of ex-ND Minister (PM’s sister) Dora.
A second journalist, Mara Zacharea, is married to governing party MP and ex-Minister Theodoros Roussopoulos.
All six journalists must conform to strict rules set for the debate by a so-called ‘inter-party committee.’ Journalists seem to have had no say regarding the date, topics, number of questions, and follow-ups. It is also arranged with the committee, who will ask who. All journalists asked (Si apre in una nuova finestra) at the end to be allowed one ‘free’ question. Their request was rejected. Instead, in the end, political leaders will have (Si apre in una nuova finestra) a few minutes to communicate their liking.
At the same time, some other journalists are making a difference: On World Press Freedom Day 2023, IPI celebrated its members around the globe “for their game-changing journalism that holds the powerful to account and makes our democracies stronger.” They included (Si apre in una nuova finestra) Eliza Triantafillou in their list for being “instrumental in revealing the abuse of the illegal spyware tool called Predator to surveil both politicians and journalists in Greece.”
Last but not least, as to Media Freedom in Greece: It was reported (Si apre in una nuova finestra) that with a decision published in the government gazette on 21 April -that is a day before the PM officially declared elections- the government gave up to 9 million euros in public money to mainstream TV media outlets on the pretext of… the invasion in Ukraine. It is stated that the TV broadcasters “were particularly affected by the recent financial turbulence caused by the Russian invasion in Ukraine and the subsequent EU and international allies measures, as well as for the anti-measures.” So, the state will pay the employers’ contribution to the journalists’ insurance fund EDOEAP for 2022.
“Heavy shadows above the ballot box”
Greece’s supreme Court excluded (Si apre in una nuova finestra) the party of neo-Nazi Golden Dawn convict Ilias Kasidiaris from the general elections on 21 May.
With a majority vote of 9 to 1, the judges ruled that the party ELLINES (Greeks) is a continuation of Golden Dawn as, in addition to the convicted Kasidiaris, other candidates allied themselves with the criminal organization in the past were identified.
On the same day, his party was banned from participating in the Greek Parliamentary Elections, Kasidiaris uploaded another video to YouTube.
However, the political party EAN, which suddenly sprang up last week and is headed by Kasidiaris’ close associate and former vice president of the Supreme Court, Anastasios Kanellopoulos, will participate in the elections. Fears had been expressed that the sudden move of Kanellopoulos to run with EAN and not ELLINES could be a tactical move of Kasidiaris to ensure that one formation will be approved to participate in elections and potentially for Ellines’s members to find later shelter in EAN. It is yet to be seen.
What must be emphasized here is that most of the parties banned were right-wing to extreme right-wing; that is, they could potentially take votes from the ruling ND.
Director at Centre for European Constitutional Law and Constitutional Law Professor Xenofon Kontiadis already warned when Kasidiaris’s party, along with Emfietzoglou-Bogdanos's hard right party at the time, were banned. He wrote (Si apre in una nuova finestra) that since the Emfietzoglou-Bogdanos party banning was not fully justified, “public opinion is steadily led to believe that the government is orchestrating the ‘elimination’ of the parties on the [right], causing suspicion for a rule of law slide… We cannot know if the banning of these parties will help the ruling party win in the coming elections or win an absolute parliament majority in the next ones; it is certain, though, that it is the first time within the 49 years after Democracy was fully reinstated in the country that shadows are created as to if the Constitution is upheld during elections. This is a severe blow to the democratic acquis of the Third Hellenic Democracy, which had been held as a crown jewel in a time of much more intense political polarisation and social tension.”
And this was before 14 parties were excluded from the elections - out of 50 submissions.
Kontiadis made this statement after the leaders of three political parties had formally complained about the electronic system run by Singular Logic company, through which the parties file the application for participation in the elections. It was Zoe Konstantopoulou-Plefsi Eleftherias, Kyriakos Velopoulos-Elliniki Lysi, and Nikos Nikolopoulos-Christian Democrats. They all noted that the system was ‘aborting’ their parties out, or it appeared to have crashed, as reported (Si apre in una nuova finestra).
It is also worth noting that Singular Logic was bought in 2021 by Spyros Manolopoulos’s Space Hellas company. It has been reported (Si apre in una nuova finestra) that the Manopoloulos family retained close friendship and financial ties to the Mistotakis family for decades. This is the first time Singular Logic will manage the elections under its new ownership.
Apart from Ellines, parties Ef-Kinisis, Prasino & Mov, Patriotiki Enosis, and Patrida were also banned, “which coincidentally were threatening to deprive ND of voted from specific audiences,” as an essential report in daily Dimokratia noted, under the title “Heavy shadows above the ballot box.” “Young or older [audiences], liberal and conservative.”
Ef-Kinisis leader, for example, stated in anger that the Singular Logic system did not accept the submission of its party. Prasino & Mov was rejected as overdue without the Top Court’s decision being justified to the party’s representatives.
All in all, “the only parties which are left to the political right of ND are Thanos Tzimeros’s Dimiourgia Ksana, who has stated that he would give a so-called tolerance vote to an ND government, and Kanellopoulos’s EAN, which is being quickly staffed by ex-LAOS [ex-far right party] MPs,” the report added.
Now, what if you read again what Professor Kontiadis wrote?
Read
17-year-old boy physically & sexually abused in detention center (Si apre in una nuova finestra)
Greece’s Health Minister falls victim of yogurt attack (Si apre in una nuova finestra)
US confiscates Iran oil cargo on Greek-managed tanker (Si apre in una nuova finestra)
Judges turn down lawyers’ invitation to resolve justice delays (Si apre in una nuova finestra)
American Literature honored at Thessaloniki International Book Fair (Si apre in una nuova finestra)
Plan Ahead
Jazz at the Museum, Athens, May 5 & 6 (Si apre in una nuova finestra): Tribute to poetry and jazz with a performance centered on 15 poems by Dimitris Kataleifos
Novoflot, Elefsina, May 5-7 (Si apre in una nuova finestra): The Berlin-based, convention-defying opera company Novoflot is traveling to Athens to appear in the Elefsina European Capital of Culture program.
Athens Jazz Festival: Technopolis Athens, May 22-May 29 (Si apre in una nuova finestra)
Athens City Festival - Through May (Si apre in una nuova finestra)
That’s all for this week,
Hope you have a great weekend and a next week ahead,
The AL team
