Papandreou has little time for reforms

After his electoral victory on Sunday George Papandreou, the head of the Greek socialist party Pasok, has declared war on corruption and cronyism. But his time margin is tight because the country's social and economic problems are pushing in from all sides, writes the daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung: "The conservative politician Konstantinos Karamanlis went to the polls in 2004 with promises of eradicating the rampant corruption and improving state management. ... Like Karamanlis, Giorge Papandreou also ran with the promise of stamping out corruption. He promised transparency in the allocation of state contracts. Until now the custom has often been to grant the biggest state contracts to companies close to the governing party, which has only fuelled corruption. Now the social democrat must show that he is more successful in the role of the nation's Mr Clean than his conservative rivals. Time is also pressing here, because voters are expecting speedy results."

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