CNN
March 1, 2012
The last few months have witnessed a dramatic turn in the way democratic politics are conducted in a sovereign country that is also a member state of the European Union. The depth of the economic crisis and the increasing dependency of Greece on external funds to survive have led to an unprecedented degree of national humiliation and destabilization of the political system.
Greek parliamentary practices are operating under emergency procedures, a government has been overturned overnight and constitutional practices are being bypassed. The national parliament, the symbol of representative and competitive democracy in Greece, has become purely symbolic and procedural in the way it votes for its austerity laws. External pressures to impose a Special Commissioner to run the country's finances and recommendations regarding the date of national elections -- and the most desirable outcome -- are all attacking the heart of Greece's democracy, its sovereignty.
To be sure, Greek democracy was far from perfect before, suffering from clientelism, nepotism and corruption, but it had made significant strides since the country's entry into the European Community in 1981. Similarly, national sovereignty had become vulnerable way before 2009, as a result of increasing debt to unsustainable levels and a state deficit whose extent was not even calculated properly.
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