Wednesday morning, the Greek parliament will see a first sparring between what could be its new opposition poles. On the parliament floor will be the first public confrontation between Prime Minister and New Democracy head Kyriakos Mitsotakis and newly re-elected PASOK party leader Nikos Androulakis.
In terms of seats in parliament, left-wing party SYRIZA remains the main opposition. But after months of party infighting, with an interim party president, and with polls showing PASOK far ahead, SYRIZA is not well-positioned to stand its ground as the main opposition.
PASOK conversely is fresh off intra-party elections, which re-cemented incumbent Nikos Androulakis as the party’s leader, and has given the party a chance to project a message of unity and stability.
New Democracy retains the strongest support among the electorate in polls, but is losing ground, and shedding support steadily over the past few months. Thus Wednesday it is expected the party and its prime minister will set their sights more firmly on PASOK and address them as the main opposition.
Parliament Plenary On the Fire Season
Parliament is being briefed Wednesday morning by the Prime Minister with a report on this year’s fire season. The relevant debate is then expected to expand to a variety of different political issues, with two rounds of statements by the Prime Minister and the leaders of the parties, and closing remarks by Mitsotakis.
A request for a debate regarding the fires had been tabled by PASOK since August, as well as by SYRIZA. In the letter sent by Nikos Androulakis, after the fires raged in Attica, he pointed out that “for yet another year, our country was faced with catastrophic fires even a few kilometers from the center of Athens, with a tragic outcome. A woman lost her life, tens of thousands of acres of burnt land, a huge ecological disaster, loss of property for hundreds of our fellow citizens”.
Sparring between New Democracy and PASOK
There have been other barbs exchanged recently between New Democracy and PASOK. Just yesterday the parliament voted on a bill regarding the acceleration of recruitment through the The Supreme Council for Civil Personnel Selection (ASEP) and the establishment of a system of incentives and rewards for civil servants.
The government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis critiqued PASOK’s votes against the bill, specifically honing in on Androulakis: “Politics are policies, not slogans. We are all judged daily by the citizens for our actions and not for our words,” he stated. “Our only wish is that this first example of Mr Androulakis’ renewed term in the presidency of PASOK will not be a precursor of a second term whose title will be ‘spectators at the same play’.”
This sparring between the parties is not new, nor are the more personalized attacks between the party leaders. Over a year ago, in August 2023, when the subject of fires was previously discussed in parliament, Mitsotakis and Androulakis had a heated standoff. The debate particularly became tense in discussion of the fire that consumed Dadia national park, a fire that at the time was the largest ever recorded in the EU. The confrontation concluded with Mitsotakis dismissing his opponent with a “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” to which Androulakis responded: “It is good to be more careful. You are the prime minister under whose rule the jewel of Dadia was burned and a generation will not live to see and experience it.”
