Drama and Pathos Mark a Greece Adrift

Drama in a historic vote of censure in the small hours of the morning. Pathos at a funeral in the afternoon rain. Such were the political signposts Thursday in a country on hold.

Greece, the divided and unstable kin of a united and powerful Europe, is adrift, searching for a new course.

An improbable government of conservatives and Communists, formed after no-winner June elections, announced Thursday that, as planned, it will resign next week to clear the way for new elections Nov. 5.

These elections could restore political direction to Greece, but there is no assurance that they will.

Unchecked Terrorism

A caretaker government of political personages will handle day-to-day affairs until November in a country where, for more than a year, the government has failed to effectively address economic trouble, unchecked terrorism and Greece’s relations with the United States and its partners in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Community.

Conservatives and Communists say their short-term pact to seek “catharsis” for sins of the political past bore fruit early Thursday when Parliament made Andreas Papandreou, Greece’s Socialist leader, the first prime minister in Greek history forced to defend himself against charges of criminal misconduct.

The small Athens stock market surged to record highs Thursday in the aftermath of the parliamentary action. If there was a new sense of confidence, a counterpoint to the need for national leadership, it was implicitly underlined at the sodden funeral Thursday afternoon of a conservative politician slain Tuesday by Marxist terrorists who, over the past 14 years here, have slain Greek and American alike with impunity.

Large, respectful crowds applauded the police-flanked black hearse bearing the body of Pavlos Bakoyannis as it glided through the wet streets of downtown Athens. Bakoyannis was a son-in-law of conservative New Democracy leader and would-be prime minister Constantine Mitsotakis.

New Democracy outpolled Papandreou’s Socialists in June by 44% to 39% but fell six seats short of a majority in Parliament. This forced an alliance with the also-ran Communists.

In the spring of 1988, Papandreou, who was married and approaching 70, fell publicly--some said scandalously--in love with a former flight attendant half his age. Papandreou’s attention wandered from the affairs of a government whose massive corruption he is now formally accused of abetting. Then he fell sick and traveled to London for heart surgery and a prolonged convalescence.

In the policy vacuum that has continued since the June election, Greece has suffered.

Massive Deficit

Inflation of nearly 16% a year is almost four times the European Community average. This, plus a massive public deficit and a painful foreign debt that are Papandreou legacies, will probably demand economic austerity in 1990.

There are conservative expectations that the criminal charges of influence-peddling and bribe-taking against Papandreou will prove to be mortal political wounds.

Still, Papandreou has support among Greeks who agree with him that the conservatives and Communists were less interested in justice than in destroying him and his Socialist movement.

Many voters, as they demonstrated in June, are undismayed by the spectacle of public scandal. At the grass-roots level, many are more interested in the roads, schools and hospitals that came during Papandreou’s rule.

In the wake of the punishment his opponents have meted out to him, Greek analysts see no chance that Papandreou could win the next election. But it is possible, they say, that the conservatives could lose it by failing to win an outright majority, thereby prolonging the Greek drift.