Editorial Ta Nea: Chasing power

The investigation of corruption cases is one thing, and the manufacturing of suspects is quite another. The distinction between the two is absolutely discernible.

The government is attempting to do both at once. It appears to be interested only in maintaining the impression that its political opponents are implicated in corruption cases, so that they may be perpetually under suspicion.

That assessment is not based on an arbitrary evaluation, but on actual events, such as the case of a government minister, who has been described as a “Rasputin”, and who was demanding of the corruption prosecutor that she file charges be filed in cases in which the necessary evidence was lacking. “Let them take up the case further down the line so as to be acquitted,” he is said to have declared.

There is also the case of a government minister who claimed that in order for the ruling party to win the next general election, some people must be put in prison.

Before that, one had the case of a public order minister who confessed that she was familiar with the content of the case file on the Novartis affair, and declared that there will be prosecution.

Corruption cases arise almost everywhere in the world, but they are dealt with institutionally, and not by criminalising political life.

The reason for that is simple. The criminalisation of political life is itself a form of corruption, the type of corruption that chase power instead of money.