An outbreak of toxicity politics, with the main aim of creating a morbid climate and eliminating political opponents.

When conspiracy story writers and political gamblers in character assassination, toxicity and bungling saw the alleged Novartis scandal collapse with a bang, they went to work to … highlight another scandal, that of the wiretapping.

And when the judicial investigation concluded that the EPS or another government agency charged with protecting public safety had nothing to do with the tainted Predator software,the complaints of the opposition and the demands for Inquiries and Pre-Investigations began to rain down!

In fact, when in an attempt to get the case brought up again for review, the Supreme Court said no, the anti-systemic, political “ethicists” of the opposition and the domestic interconnectedness went ballistic!The legal backlinks were a useless and damaging piece of information for the opposition parties’ narrative, which wanted government surveillance with an alleged orchestrator inside Maximou. Nor were they satisfied when prosecutions were brought for surveillance by private parties using the Predator system.

Only similarities…

Both files, the Predator case and the Novartis collusion, became objects of instrumentalization of institutions for petty political purposes. In both cases there was involvement of dirty networks, political figures and journalists were targeted, and witnesses or evidence of dubious credibility were recruited. They caused an explosion of political toxicity, with the main aim of creating a morbid climate and eliminating political opponents. Predator and the Novartis plot are identified with the darkness of the political debate, where the boundaries between legitimacy and the parastate become blurred.

On February 5, 2018, shortly after 8 pm, the Novartis plot premieres to the public. Reporters wait outside Maximou for Stavros Kontonis and Dmitris Papaggelopoulos, who have gone to brief the then prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, on the Novartis case. On his way out, Papaggelopoulos, with the wit, style and terminology of a prosecutor, refers to “the biggest scandal since the establishment of the Greek state”and advises those who talk about political prosecutions “not to speak because they are exposed”.

Almost five and a half years later, these statements collapsed like a house of cards and the verdict of the Plenary Council fully vindicated the ten political figures that the so-called “Rasputin” and his Syriza party hung on the pegs in the Novartis scandal.

In the summer of 2022, the legitimate phone tap on the phone of Nikos Androulakis by the NIS becomes the occasion for another alleged scandal. This is how the willing allies of toxicity in the opposition begin to weave the… offspring of the Novartis plot, the science fiction scenario with the Predator and the various unconfirmed, to date, Predator-lists. Names of politicians, military, businessmen and journalists are trapped in the dirty networks and become fodder for the wild and hungry beasts of toxicity.

Syriza is targeting Kyriakos Mitsotakis, and Alexis Tsipras dreams he has found the weapon to neutralize the prime minister and bring down the government. In his plan of political extermination of Mitsotakis, he does not hesitate to use even leading members of some so-called Independent Authorities. The evidence, however, to support the populist and dangerous narrative of surveillance allegedly carried out by Maximou, does not exist and is never produced to the investigation.

The Novartis experience and the practices of the plotters sow doubts in public opinion whether the story of the wiretapping could be true. And the majority is probably not convinced. Confirmed the smell of toxicity and walked away… But the instigators in and around Koumoundourou, reaching as far as Charilaou Trikoupis, were not giving up. After all, they had no other weapon in their powder magazine. They stuck to the Predator lists even if the results of the judicial investigation were different. Even when final answers were given, the opposition began to raise hue and cry and dust with demands for Investigators and Pre-Investigators.

And that’s where PASOK joined the dance first, and Nikos Androulakis seems eager to lead the way. And not only him, but also Anna Diamantopoulou, who in 2022 as a candidate for OASA was asked in an interview to comment on the surveillance case. Then, without hesitation, she spoke of “attacking the prime minister of the country without understanding, or understanding and doing it on purpose, how important it is to accuse him without evidence and proof.” And she didn’t stop there, but compared the connections directly to the Novartis plot. From 2022 to the present, however, things are not the same. Diamantopoulou was a failed candidate for president of PASOK and has now aligned herself with the leadership of Harilaou Trikoupis. Somehow she is now also discovering this… cover-up in the surveillance case.

Citizens didn’t… bite

According to the Opinion Poll, in the spontaneous ranking of problems with up to three choices possible, accuracy and inflation dominate with 52.2%. They are followed by the economy and growth at 30.7%. Corruption scores 18.1%, administration of justice 15.6%, energy prices 14.7%, the war in Iran 11.7%, the state of the NHS 9.4% and crime 9%. Just 1.5% rate the issue of surveillance as serious, while concern about a new wave of uncertainty due to international developments is almost universal, with 92.3% of respondents saying they are “very” or “quite” worried. In terms of voting criteria, 50.7% say they will vote mainly on the basis of political stability, while 34.9% will vote to express protest. As the polling trends at least suggest, citizens are not willing to obey the fantasies of the opposition and the establishment.

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