The pages of Alexis Tsipras’ Ithaca have reminded us of a crucial truth about our political system. With over 36% of the vote in the January 2015 elections, his party maintained almost the same percentage at the ballot box the following September. Even though he had been abandoned by almost a third of his MPs in the meantime, and despite his having set aside his election rhetoric to compromise with the lenders.

What does that mean for our political system? Was it just an isolated, circumstantial phenomenon, the result of the emotional outburst of a people under suffocating pressure? Or does it substantiate the spectacular manifestation of a great truth we simply do not wish to see: that our mode of government, presidential parliamentary democracy, is in practice person-centered and—to call a spade a spade—Prime-Minister-centric?

Because that seems to align with the wishes of the nation, who want their democracy to be governable. In truth, it’s clear as day: to see, all we need do is jettison our romanticism and observe how our institutions, from words in the Constitution, are rendered flesh and bone in practice.

The Parliament

Its core function is not, as a law student might say, to legislate. Nor is it its main task to pass the budget or exercise parliamentary control. Its primary job is to produce governmental stability by giving the government its vote of confidence and maintaining that confidence for as long as the government proves worthy of it. If it cannot produce governmental stability, it is dissolved.

Of course, Parliament does indeed pass our laws. But what is actually happening here? Using its government majority, the Parliament approves the bills presented to it by ministers. And it assumes the role of adviser to the government when the bills are debated by correcting, supplementing or improving on the proposed text.

Of course, there’s also the opposition. There’s no denying its role as a vigilant guardian of the public interest. But it essentially functions, because it is not given scope to do more, to remind the majority, with new evidence and arguments each time, how mistaken it is to support the government.

The government

The Constitution distinguishes it from Parliament as a separate state function. However, the primary competence of the government, which is indeed the pre-eminent organ of the executive branch, is not to implement laws. It is to make policy. And in order for the policy to be implemented, measures need to be passed into law.

In parliament, the government is thus identified with its majority in a single power bloc. By passing the laws that institutionalize government policy, the governing majority actually co-governs.

In constitutional law, this might be described as a fusion of powers. In practice, though, the one is identified with the other. A government without a governing majority is unthinkable in the Greek political system.

The Prime Minister

The people view the prime minister as the government and vote him in to govern. In one-party governments, it is the Prime Minister who bears the ultimate political responsibility. That said, our experience of governments which contain more than one party has made it clear that in these administrations, too, the Prime Minister emerges as the central figure who ultimately convinces or drives away the voters.

Our recent political history has made their central role on the political scene crystal clear. Alexis Tsipras isn’t our only example. Every Prime Minister, or almost every one, from Constantine Karamanlis and Andreas Papandreou to the present incumbent are cases in point.

This truth has also been enshrined in the law on the executive state. Which concentrates power in the hands of the person who bears the ultimate political responsibility.

No matter how some people may choose to interpret the Constitution, the nation which supports the government wants its ministers to respect the prime minister. They do not understand how there can be plurality in the Cabinet, if that means going against the prime minister. The people expect results from him on every level, from the rule of law through the economy to foreign policy. And the buck does indeed stop with the PM.

Checks and balances

The counterweights to governmental power could include the institutional opposition, the independent constitutional authorities, and perhaps even the President of the Republic. All three can indeed present the government with political difficulties. The institutional opposition can cause it to lose percentage points in the opinion polls or create internal frictions. The independent authorities will sometimes expose the executive politically. And the President of the Republic may occasionally and marginally exceed his circumscribed role as regulator of the political system.

But even if we accept them as institutional counterweights, these three institutions cannot legally block the government legally by overturning its acts. Only the judiciary can do that.

By reviewing the constitutionality of the laws it passes, the judges have the constitutional power to render inoperative the legislation passed by Parliament. Through the preventive auditing of public contracts, the Court of Auditors may, for reasons of legality, obstruct the implementation of public works and contractual supply and service agreements. And, by means of an application for annulment, the Council of State, at the apex of administrative justice, can annul any unlawful act by a government body. In matters of environmental protection, spatial planning and urban planning, let’s not hide the fact that the Council of State co-governs along with the government. And fifty years’ experience probably vindicates this.

On the road to Emmaus, Jesus’ disciples had the truth walking alongside them, but did not see it. We see it, but we refuse to accept it. We believe that our institutions are being corrupted or that they are degenerating. That the Prime Minister-centric system is a betrayal of democracy.

But that is how our democratic nation understands democracy. Our people take the risk. They want freedom with social rights, they demand the rule of law and guarantees against arbitrariness. But they feel that government stability is a prerequisite for all of that.

It is the sense of self-preservation that guides the nation when it beholds, beyond the microcosm of politics, the bigger picture of Greece in our corner of the Mediterranean, in Europe and in the world.

Mr. Ioannis Sarmas is a former caretaker Prime Minister and Honorary President of the Court of Auditors.