Maria Katsounaki

Stefanos Kasselakis, the leader of leftist SYRIZA, adopted a “postmodern” approach last Thursday in his appearance at the party's 4th Congress. Alone on a large stage, with a crimson backdrop and a long, narrow, Instagram-style screen, constantly broadcasting his image in a steady shot. He spoke with ease but also with some nervousness, which is rather likable in a first-timer. He had a portable headset and with the help of technology he read the text of his speech in a way that was not immediately visible. He was standing and walking, breaking from the formal practices of such conventions. The only distressing thing about him seemed to be his very fitted suit.

How many times was the word “wrong” heard as an admission or an apportioning of blame at Kathimerini's conference on the 50th anniversary since the restoration of Greek democracy? If we were to circle the most characteristic words, as Kevin Featherstone, professorial research fellow and director of the Hellenic Observatory at the European Institute of the LSE, did for the period of the Greek debt crisis (especially during 2015) regarding the attitude of the parliaments of the UK, Germany and the Netherlands, the surprise might be the repetition.

Before email and messaging, we had regular mail and envelopes, which candidates for the national or European Parliament would send off to voters, only so they could form huge piles in the entrances to our apartment buildings. What was the point of this enormous profusion of advertising material, which came in glossy or regular form depending on the budget of each given campaign, with photographs of retouched, smiling candidates? Did it somehow help acquaint the public with the candidates, did it affect how people voted, did it create some form of impression that had an impact? Over time, it became a tactic that was dismissed as mundane, as a waste of resources and a blight on the environment, with little, if any, political purpose.

Parliament's investigative committee for the Tempe rail disaster wrapped up its deliberations, with the findings submitted by the ruling New Democracy party being approved by the House majority. One of the key conclusions that has emerged is that seven separate violations of the rail operator's regulations were confirmed. Another case that had been brought before Parliament concerned a train that ran a red stop light near Athens on Christmas Eve in 2023, thankfully without causing any casualties.

Yorgos Mavropsaridis celebrated his nomination at this year's Oscars alongside his two daughters, who joined him on his journey to Los Angeles: 24-year-old Ilektra, a musician, and 27-year-old Penelope, a director. Perhaps this was his greatest joy.

The three-day parliamentary debate on a motion of no confidence submitted by opposition parties over developments in the Tempe train crash inquiry ended on Thursday. We were a little puzzled, we mostly confirmed what we knew and very often wondered about the “truth” that was repeatedly professed by party leaders in their speeches.

“We have said that we want gun ownership for the Greek man, training for the Greek woman, for everyone,” the leader of the nationalist Greek Solution party, Kyriakos Velopoulos, said in an interview with state-run broadcaster ERT, commenting on the murder of a woman by her former partner outside a police station. His party is on the rise in the latest opinion polls. Velopoulos said that perhaps “if the woman had been trained she would have been able to defend herself.” That is, we assume that if she had practiced self-defense, becoming maybe another Lara Croft or the heroine in the film “Kill Bill,” she could have neutralized her killer.

A storm in a teacup or a serious shift in the Greek cinema industry's institutional landscape? Draft laws, as a rule, tend to attract the interest only of those who are directly affected, a few specific circles. Their anxiety about what will come is not always justified, as their main source of concern is, usually, that some new measure will come along to rock their boat.

“The tourism sector has to adapt to the situation we are experiencing, which is absolutely abnormal,” a member of the Catalan government told the Financial Times in an article published on April 18. “It is a very important sector, but with the same rights and the same obligations as any other.”

There is certainly nothing measly about 244,000 votes. This was, more or less, the number of ballots it took to elect the far-right Spartiates as the fifth biggest party in Parliament in June 2023.