GREECE: Kani Politiki

One of the charms of modern Hellas is that everyone plays the national game of kani politiki (making politics). A fixture of the scene in an Athens café or in any village taverna is at least one Greek spread over five chairs (a prop for each arm, one for each foot and one to sit on), waiting for his vari gliko (strong, sweet coffee), and noting on the back of a box of cigarettes this list: Populists 62, Liberals 62, Union of the Center 46, Social Democrats 34, Union of the Left 11, Unionists 6. These are the main political parties, with the number of seats that they hold in Parliament. The taverna statesman then juggles the list around until he gets a coalition government with a voting majority in the 250-seat chamber. Then he has “made” a government.

Last week on the back of a cigarette box, Sophocles Venizelos’ new government (Greece’s 18th since liberation), a Liberal-Populist-Social Democrat coalition, looked fine. It totted up to 158 seats. But ECA officials had lost patience with cabinet shuffling. At week’s end ECA and State Department officials announced a slash in Greek assistance funds. “This action,” said a Department spokesman, “is based upon the conclusion, after careful consideration and analysis, that the rate of progress in the Greek program has not been sufficient to allow complete and effective utilization of the amount originally contemplated.”

The blow fell only six weeks after Greece’s ECA Chief Paul Porter had told a U.S. correspondent: “You can say I’m optimistic—better make it cautiously optimistic.” Added Porter: “We have attained relative economic stability, and for the first time the Greek budget looks like a real budget!” Porter drew the reporter’s attention to the fact that for the first time since the war the gold sovereign rate had dropped, taxes were being collected, and some foreign capital was trickling in. The Greeks were getting out those long-hoarded gold sovereigns from their mattresses, and investing them in apartment houses and factories.

Possibly a lightning change had struck the Greek economy in six weeks. More likely, the taverna statesmen were right in their suspicions that Paul Porter was kani politiki in an effort to get a cabinet more to his liking.