The “Refugee Community” on Alexandras Avenue issued a statement celebrating its victory, following the “legal recognition” it received from the Mayor of Athens Chari Douka.
And rightly so, because the resolution of the City of Athens officially recognized it as a “autonomous entity,” “collective social entity,” and “equal partner with a decisive role” in any future restoration effort.
This would obviously be the case in Athens as well, with Haris Doukas as mayor. But the stance taken on this whole issue by PASOK,, which has avoided taking a position and, in an attempt to downplay the issue, has let it be known that it distinguishes between “political” and “local government” matters. Of course, such a distinction would be valid if the mayor had not simply made a humanitarian appeal not to mourn a death resulting from the hunger strike. But in this case, that is not the case. On the contrary, at the mayor’s initiative , the squatters of public property (i.e., the taxpayers’) are playing a “decisive role.”
For what other interpretation could there be for a resolution that endorses the logic and actions of individuals who occupy and trample upon private property? Haris Doukas is not so naive as to fail to understand that the Athens City Council’s resolution sets a dangerous precedent for—similar or equivalent—throughout the country. In essence, the silence of Harilaou Trikoupi amounts to a de facto legitimization. In a sense, PASOK and Haris Doukas are “obliged” to coexist with leftists and those on the left, since it was thanks to them that they won the municipal elections. After all, the resolution was introduced by the factions “Athens NOW” (Doukas) and “Open City” (SYRIZA). If PASOK had condemned it—as it should have—it would have broken up this alliance in Athens, which serves as the model (despite Nikos Androulakis’s denials) of “progressive” governance.
After all, a public condemnation of Haris Doukas by Nikos Androulakis over such a polarizing issue of law and order would spark an internal ideological war between the “center-left rights-based” wing and the “institutional” wing of PASOK.
Consequently, the leadership team “entrenched itself” behind the argument that the decision was a matter of local self-government, leaving the mayor to bear the political cost of his choice, so that PASOK itself would not be forced to take an official position at the national level on whether squatters should play a decisive role in urban redevelopment projects. However, this, in any case has a negative impact on the voter base that PASOK should logically be targeting in order to stem the momentum shown in the polls by Alexis Tsipras’s party
