ATHENS — If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will instantly jump out. But if you heat the water slowly (or so the story goes), the frog will sit there patiently until it boils to death.

Greek democracy is like that simmering frog. Long weakened by clientelism and abuses of power, stunned by five years of recession and austerity, it is now perilously close to giving up the ghost.

The coalition government of New Democracy’s Antonis Samaras is becoming more and more authoritarian, passing laws by decree and pandering to the agenda of the far-right party, Golden Dawn. References to the junta of 1967-1974 are no longer the sole province of left-wing rhetoric.

The sudden closure of the state TV and radio broadcaster ERT last month, without any debate or vote in Parliament, brought back memories of tanks and martial music for many who would normally reject such crude comparisons.