If you want to understand the present, you really have to understand a little about the past, and what hardly any of know anything about is Greek history, so I offer you the following for your information and edification. We are all aware that Greece is considered the Cradle of Democracy, but Greece as we know it is a very recent ... and I mean, very recent ... phenomenon.
Around 500 BCE the Athenians and others came up with the idea of allowing free (read: non-slave), native (read: non-foreigner), adult male citizens take a major and direct part in the management of the affairs of state, e.g., declaring war, conducting diplomatic missions, ratifying treaties, etc. This was handled either directly or via some form of popular assembly. This form of government of course applied to the rather limited city-states in existence at the time. About two centuries later, groups of these city-states formed confederations, perhaps the two best known being the Delian (led by Athens) and the Peloponnesian (led by Sparta, which, by the way, wasn't run democratically ... go figure) Leagues. These were not anywhere near similar to the country of Greece as it exists today. Once the Athenians started using League resources for their own benefit, things went downhill and by 146 BCE, the Romans were enjoying the full extent of Greek hospitality. They hung around till their own empire collapsed around 450 AD. Various peoples swept through the Greek countryside, for the most part, the Slavs and the Turks, until the Ottomans invited themselves in around the middle of the 15th century. They liked it so much, that they stayed another 400 years themselves.
Starting in 1821, the Greeks tried getting themselves together to get rid of the Ottomans. In 1832, with British backing (for the foreigners were still calling the big shots), they installed King Otto I, but as the name suggests he was the second son of Ludwig I, King of Bavaria (and as Bavaria's colors are blue and white, it is no surprise that the Greeks liked them so much they made their flag out of those colors, too). That lasted till about 1862 when they invited him to leave, as unceremoniously as they had invited him to come. But, as would be expected, they were still dominated in most areas by the Ottomans, who would remain in control until 1919 and the end of WW1, when they were forced to withdraw for being on the losing side of the war.
It is not unexpected that there was a lot of internal strife after the war. Though republics were springing up all over the place, there were still a good number of folks that still believed monarchies are better so the Republicans and Royalists trying to gain control. There was absolutely no stability nor a real government that lasted very long during this time. With the beginning of WW2, the Italians saw some easy pickings to the East, and before long the Germans were back with a vengeance, further suppressing the Greeks till the end of the war. Post-WW2 wasn't much different from post-WW1, except now it was the Republicans (the monarchy issue had somehow been resolved) and the Pro-Communists who were at each others' throats trying to gain control of the country. It goes without saying which side the USA was on in this struggle. Things got so bad that in 1967 an American-sponsored military junta took control of the country to stop the election of the left-liberal candidate Andreas Papandreou. The junta remained in control until 1974 when the first democratically elected government of Greece took office.
Yes, 1974, a scant 40 years ago. In other words ... and this is the real point ... there hasn't been much of a Greece, nor much of a stable government in the country for the past 2,000 years. Could it be that we simply expect too much too soon?
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