Passionate Greece: Minister in love hires girl friend. Should he resign?

Posted by keeptalkinggreece in Very Mix

A scandal? Oh, dear! One more, one less does not make any difference in this country of Greeks and cheerful orange trees. Really. Honestly. Simos Kedikoglou, minister in charge of media, got a girl friend. “So what?” one should ask. “So nothing,” one should answer. If it wasn’t this juicy detail.
That the minister hired his girl friend to work at his office and had the broke Greek taxpayers to come up for the living expenses of the blond, that the minister is so fond of and in love with.
Coincidence or just political rivals
Sunday: Sunday newspaper Proto Thema published a series of pictures of the minister kissing his girl friend at a luxury ressort at Cap Sounion. With the title “The minister kissed amazingly” the newspaper wrote in two pages how the couple met, how the relationship is going and so on.


Monday: leakage to the Greek press  websites exposed that the girl friend was hired by the minister last March to work at his political office. Hiring personnel for the public administration - even on temporary contract – needs to be published in the Official Gazette of government.  The official announcement for the hiring was published in May 2013. The hiring has been approved by the prime minister.
The news spread like a wildfire through the internet and many users demanded that Kedikoglou resigns right away. It was him who shutdown public broadcaster ERT for being a ‘sinister full of corruption and nepotism”.
Tuesday morning: The girl friend resigned from her job.
Tuesday afternoon: Simos Kedikoglou is still minister.
Why should Kedikoglou resign? Some Greeks claim because it was unethical to hire his girl friend when teachers get laid-off without consideration of meritocratic criteria.
Why Kedikoglou should not resign? Because the majority of ministers and lawmakers hire their wives, daughters, nephews and best men and offer them jobs in their offices.
On mean Greek internet there are claims that his foes leaked the whole story. That’s not relevant, isn’t it?
PS a new word has been invented: ‘girlfriendism’. Or is ‘girlfriendocracy” better?