Ex-Mayor of Athens, Kostas Bakoyannis, Slams "part-time" Athens Mayor
No comparisons to Bill de Blasio, for the moment
“We love Athens,” as Donald Trump might say. But as he might also say, “we’ll see what happens.”
Yesterday, as we ventured across downtown on foot to see the shop where actor Daniel Craig recently bought some interesting novelty items that we can’t specify just yet, we tripped over broken sidewalks no fewer than three times, saw dumpsters overflowing with trash, saw way more virulent anti-Israeli graffiti than street art (with plenty of “Airbnb Fuck Off” messages in the lovely mix), and struggled to find a trash can. That wasn’t much fun.
What’s going on here? Does Athens have only a part-time mayor?
Young Kostas Bakoyannis, the former Mayor of Athens who I’ve interviewed previously, seems to think so.
According to comments made on a Greek interview show and reported in the newspaper Ta Nea, had this to say about the current mayor:
A bit of background here: Bakoyannis belongs to one of Greece’s most famous political families: his uncle, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, is currently the Prime Minister and also president of the governing New Democracy party.
Doukas, the mayor, belongs to the PASOK - Movement for Change party, which is a essentially Greece’s socialist party, though not quite as socialist as say, whatever lefty party Zohran Mamdani belongs to. And the urban problems facing Athens pale in comparison to those plaguing New York.
Still, Bakoyannis may be on to something. Not only are many sidewalks in Athens literally falling apart, but now people are parking electric scooters on them preventing easy passage. As for parking, there is a crisis in central neighborhoods like Pagrati and highly selective enforcement of parking infractions — if the city has any solutions to the paucity of parking, which it seems pretty clear they don’t, Athenians haven’t gotten the memo.
The graffiti situation is pretty appalling. Whether you agree with Bakoyannis or not that the slogans “on the walls of Athens” are anti-Semitic or just anti-Israeli, the unarguable truth is that it’s ugly. And it seems the city is turning a blind eye — we’d reach out to the current mayor’s press rep, but well-placed sources tell the Column that he hasn’t got one.
This isn’t the first time that Doukas and New Democracy have clashed and it likely won’t be the last. Greece goes to elections in 2027, and the rumblings across all political faultlines — and here there are many — have just begun.
