Maximou’s “black hole”

Greece has spent years dreaming of “a leader who will take charge of the country’s fate,” but the article calls that idea both undemocratic and ultimately foolish. No individual can take responsibility for running an entire country, it argues. Not even God could manage such a complex task, unless he were a dictator and led the country to destruction.

There have been better and worse prime ministers, the article acknowledges. Some left a positive mark on history, while others left a negative one. But the political conversation must move beyond the search for a single leader. Greece already has institutions designed to make good prime ministers better and bad ones less destructive: separation of powers, an active parliament, an independent judiciary and independent authorities modeled on those of advanced Western democracies.

Instead, these institutions are left parked in the Constitution, admired from a distance or condemned when they obstruct what the “chosen one” wants to do. Politicians’ hunger for power has met the public’s desire for a “father figure,” the article says, weakening the entire political process. Parliament often does not deliberate over what it votes on, while the judiciary has failed to find evidence to investigate the biggest scandal of the post-dictatorship period.

The article says this prime-minister-centered system also sidelines local government and civil society, treating them as if they were not political processes. Haris Doukas became mayor of Athens in November 2022, then set his sights on the premiership nine months later by running in PASOK’s internal elections. Maria Karystianou became the face of the largest civic mobilization, when one million people gathered in squares in February 2025 seeking accountability from those responsible for the Tempi tragedy. Before a year had passed, she too turned toward the premiership.

The article does not judge their motives. They may be ambitious, it says, or they may have concluded that without control of central government, even basic goals cannot be achieved, from Athens’s roads to the administration of justice and transport safety. In either case, the growing weight of executive power remains the central problem.