From ‘Zorba’ to ‘Crime and Punishment’: Inside the Launch of Hope for Democracy

Amid raised cameras and mobile phones, and to the sounds of “Zorba the Greek,” Maria Karystianou walked alongside supporters gathered astatine Thessaloniki’s Aristotelous Square extracurricular the Olympion Theater, where the founding lawsuit of the caller governmental enactment Hope for Democracy took place.

The event, which began with a hold of astir an hour, was hosted by Thanassis Avgerinos, a longtime analogous successful Russia, who described the juncture arsenic the start of a caller section successful Greece’s governmental life. Wearing a achromatic garment featuring the writers Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov and Fyodor Dostoevsky, Avgerinos said it was nary coincidence that Dostoevsky appeared astatine the center, noting that helium authored “Crime and Punishment.” “Punishment is approaching for those who committed crimes,” helium said.

The lawsuit was co-hosted by Katerina Moutsatsou, a US-based histrion who gained online attraction successful 2012 with her patriotic video astir Greece’s fiscal crisis, “I americium Hellene.”

Following a video presumption featuring messages from Greeks surviving abroad, farmers and young people, Karystianou took the stage to outline 20 cardinal points of the movement’s founding declaration. “Today, anticipation for ideology is born,” she declared astatine the decision of her speech, unveiling the party’s sanction and logo, which diagnostic a dove and an olive branch.

Karystianou stressed that she does not travel from a governmental household and said the question was not conceived arsenic a traditional enactment of powerfulness oregon different governmental mechanism, but alternatively arsenic an effort to instrumentality authorities to citizens. “There comes a infinitesimal successful each federation when soundlessness becomes a voice, and I judge that infinitesimal has arrived for Greece,” she said. She added that due to the fact that mean citizens are challenging the establishment, they person faced changeless attacks and ridicule.

Those attending the lawsuit astatine the Olympion included politicians, lawyers, businesspeople, farmers, section authorities officials, members of the Greek diaspora and participants successful the Indignants question that emerged during the indebtedness crisis.

Seated successful the beforehand rows were members of the party’s halfway enactment team, including retired emblem serviceman Athanasios Tsouganatos, erstwhile SYRIZA cardinal committee subordinate Ioannis Chatziantoniou, lawyer Dimitris Panagiotopoulos, erstwhile ambassador Leonidas Chrysanthopoulos, communications advisor Maria Baklava, lawyer Maria Gratsia, and Stratos Siourdakis, president of the Greek assemblage successful Saint Petersburg.