There is a recurring, almost fatal, truth in the historical consciousness of this place: castles do not fall from the might of the besiegers∙ fall through the cracks within their walls. Thermopylae was lost not only by the multitude of the enemy, but also by the treachery of the path. Constantinople was not only battered by Muhammad’s cannons, but by the internal exhaustion of an empire that had ceased to believe in itself.
The question returns today, not as a rhetorical exaggeration, but as an existential realization: is something similar happening with New Democracy?
Because the political problem is not primarily political positions. It is the ethos of the persons who embody them. Enshrined in the governmental scheme are presences that function not as ministers of responsibility, but as noisy phantasies of private self-affirmation. Ministers who do not heal, but irritate the social body. State officials who achieve only one thing: to exhaust the citizen’s tolerance.
And next to them, the deputy ministers: most of them are people of inactivity, with few exceptions. No proposal, no role, no footprint. An administrative shadow that lengthens the mechanism of power, without giving it content.
And the Prime Minister?
THE Kyriakos Mitsotakis he now faces a non-tactical moment. It’s not about the image. It’s about his prestige.
Prestige is not a privilege of position. It is the citizen’s sense that the leader sees, understands, acts. When society does not see persons who can take responsibility, debt collapses at the level of trust.
And when trust breaks down, no enemies needed.
Wear is enough.
2027 is not just an election station. It is the boundary between power that preserves meaning and power that merely extends. If the Prime Minister chooses the extension instead of the renewal, then the castle will not be demolished by the opposition, nor the economic difficulties, nor the international pressures.
It will be demolished by the internal political inertia of ministers and officials who have lost their original orientation.
If there’s still time, it’s now.
Not for “reshaping”, but for decision of truth.
The question is not to rule; it is to convince that it is worth ruling.