The mayor of Kythira, Mr. Charchalakis, is extremely active online. As for whether he is equally effective in his duties as mayor, the residents have their own opinions… What is hardly disputable, however, is his inability to accept criticism, as he often clashes with residents of Kythira as well as visitors who point out the island’s problems.
On Saturday, I visited the renovated Potamos stadium, where a soccer camp was being held with the participation of well-known former soccer players. In a post, I praised the effort, while also noting that, according to the organizers, it had not received the expected support from the municipality.
A few hours later, I received complaints that I was «getting political,» and, as a gesture of goodwill, I took down the post, although I had a pretty good idea where the «annoyance» was coming from… The next day, I discovered that the mayor, commenting on a repost of it, spoke of «prejudices and nonsense» and wondered if I was «satisfying some kind of inner need» with what I write.
This attitude suggests a person who has difficulty tolerating even mild criticism. And it is, to say the least, paradoxical that it comes from someone who has repeatedly threatened his critics with lawsuits, while he himself was convicted in the first instance in 2017 for defamation of the then-acting police chief of the island.
On the contrary, the undersigned, after forty years of journalism in positions of responsibility at the country’s largest media outlets and through fierce confrontations with politicians and institutional figures, has never once been convicted for anything he has written or said. Those familiar with the field of journalism understand just how rare this is.
No one disputes that the renovation of the field was a positive development. Of course, this field has been in the same spot for decades—we’ve all played there in our youth! However, the question remains: has the project been fully completed? Is the lighting working? Has it been wired for electricity? These are reasonable questions, not «nonsense.» Infrastructure is funded by taxpayers, and elected officials must be held accountable for its management. Furthermore: When world-class soccer players come to your island, what do you do to promote Kythira? Nothing?;
As for the «inner need» that the mayor refers to, I looked it up in the AI and found that someone who writes to express themselves may simply be self-expressive or engaging in a form of therapeutic writing. So I thank him for his contribution to my self-awareness and urge him to look into how someone who is in constant online conflict with his critics is characterized…
Author of the article:
Journalist, member of ESIEA, member of the Board of Directors of R/S Athens 984
