Papademos rejected as PM - Greece on track for drachma

Today i woke up and not only has Greece yet to decide on an interim Prime Minister but that the front runner was steam rollered.

The obvious choice of Papademos was vetoed at the last minute by current deputy PM and Finance minister Eleftherios Venizelos. (He denies it but sources close to him confirm it.)

Papademos was insisting that the interim PM not only sign cheques and get the loans, but stay on to actually implement the reforms that accompany the money tranches that are being sent here to Greece to bolster the corrupt public servant based economy.

He was also rejected because there was a fear that he would actually succeed in carrying out the reforms. "Him" (and i quote the source again) "a mere technocrat actually doing the job when he isn't even trained as a politician."

(Yes - people here think that a politician is a career that one can actually train for)

This concept - implementing reforms - is anathema to the political system. They have based their whole political careers at playing 'the big man in town' dispensing favours and jobs to those whom they deem worthy enough or just want to sleep with. This is how Greece's public sector was built. Its not uncommon to find accountants in the tax office who don't know accountancy, but only got the job because they turned up to political rallies. If reforms are carried out - where will they work? All they know how to do is to go out on the streets and protest. There is another job that also demands that the worker goes out onto the streets which they are also accustomed to, but the hours are a lot later and longer.

The corrupt political system is once again digging their heels in and those on the left and the right are jubilant at the prospect of returning to the drachma. What left or right. The blancmange of political parties under the rainbow are ecstatic!

No longer will they have oversight as to where and how they spend money. In the drachma they can throw as much money as they want around. The economic situation will be so bad that people will sell their sons and daughters to a politician just so they can survive - just like they used to before Greece entered the Euro. And in the drachma, politicians can once again make people millionaires! Here have a million drachma - so what - it will only be worth 40 Euro.

But remember that. All the politicians and the political parties remember the good old days of the drachma - it was not that long ago.

Which was one of the 'good' things of the euro. It started to accustom a whole nation that there was another way to live their lives without this corruptocracy. Unfortunately the other reforms that were needed to accompany closer integration - such as reforming the Justice system etc were not implemented, not did the EU do anything about - other then sending a letter and posting it on a website to voice their disapproval.

So here i am. A graduate in economic development, having worked on EU projects promoting innovation in the developing regions of Europe and the world, having helped promote Greek businesses abroad, watching my own country being deliberately led into economic ruin because of a few politicians. I see the chasm opening up before me. I know that two years ago i opposed the bailout saying that things have to get worse before they can get better - but i never advocated a removal from the euro. Under the drachma things will be worse, but the bad practices will be reborn again - something that under the euro were slowly being done away with.