Click here for more information on Blue Magic Electronic community newspaper bringing you local and national news in English Apokoronas News     Issue  85   Friday  18  May  2012 Weekly Fire place and stove manufacturers recommend that chimneys are professionally cleaned once a year. A clean chimney allows smoke and harmful gases to escape from the room. Soot and creosote deposits can obstruct your chimney and could cause chimney fires.  Tel: 6974050547 Approved by LAVOUTA Approved by LAVOUTA  Tel:  Email: kazakosgeorge1@gmail.com   Stoves Fireplaces Heating - Villa maintenance - Pool cleaning - Gardening - Rental Management - Security Call us for special pricing Tel: 28250 32709 Mob: 6933358024 in this issue... Kefas bypass and other works     Hotels, ferries fear losses New nursery for Vamos Museum award / DEDISA   PPC ends workers benefits E prescription delayed EU rethinks Greek position in Eurozone Last week in brief Hotels slash their prices May maintenance tip Wild plants - Maratho  Letters to A.N. Olympic flame / Caretaker gvt What’s on in Apokoronas Lentil salad PPC desperate for liquidity Community Small ads / For sale  © Apokoronas News 2012 After an inconclusive election result, the political parties who struggled for ten working days with the thought of working together in a coalition, decided to call it a day and called another election on 17 June. In the frenzy of mutual accusation that followed by way of explaining to the public whose fault it was, there has been a considerable amount of speculation about what the voters want. True, the two political parties who ruled the country for the last 38 years are not used to getting such a low share of the vote, no matter what blunders they committed in their previous term of office. Their powerbase was traditionally made up of voter-customers whose vote is exchanged for favours. It does not take a genius to realise that once jobs for the boys became harder to distribute, political support would wane too. But Greek politicians cannot be accused of not being arrogant. Their “vote for us or the country will be finished” and only we have the plan to save the country” campaign did not work first time round and yet they are continuing using the same sound bites.  As their approach, the economic data they present and their perception of the situation is so drastically different,  not all of them can be right at the same time. As for the lessons they’ve learnt? They have learnt that the voters do not want more austerity measure. That the voters wanted to keep the euro. That they wanted the parties to work together.  Well, they don’t get many marks for being in touch with the public if they needed an election to reach the first two conclusions. And I’m not sure about how they concluded that the people wanted all the parties to agree to work together on implementing more austerity measures. Interestingly enough there are a number of things that our political class did not learn. Such as explaining why should people vote for them. Why they could now renegotiate a better agreement with Europe while two months ago they were busy signing anything that was proposed to them. And, if they had a choice why did they not negotiate at the time? But there is no point in asking ‘why’ in this country…. So while we are waiting for a new election, the parties worry that  the country is left  ‘ungoverned’, without an elected government.  But given the quality of government we have seen so far, being ungoverned  may not be such a bad thing. YX The cost of Greek trains