ND in battle mode

KOSTAS Karamanlis’ decision on September 2 to call snap elections for the second time in two years may have come as no surprise to many, but it remains the biggest gamble of his political career.

With ND trailing Pasok by about six percentage points in public opinion surveys, Karamanlis invoked the dire repercussions of the economic crisis on Greece and depicted himself as the only party leader with the sense of responsibility and boldness to take the tough, unpopular measures needed for the country to weather the coming storm.

Though battered by months of scandal allegations, the conservatives seem to be banking on the drawing power of their leader, hoping that voters will choose Karamanlis over Papandreou in the October 4 election.

Karamanlis admitted he had not adopted the deep structural economic reforms needed to bolster the economy, but promised he would do so if offered a fresh mandate, regardless of the backlash from labour unions and opposition parties.

‘War’

Hence, he promised to slash state spending, to “wage war” against tax evasion and to affect economic structural changes that will permit future growth.

The PM blamed opposition Pasok for the fact that these reforms were not accomplished in his first five years of ND government and could not be - he said - by the end of his term in 2011.

Karamanlis blamed socialist leader George Papandreou’s determination to trigger elections next March, which the PM said would sink politics in a five-month election campaign.

“The country cannot withstand an election period through to March, especially with an opposition behaving with irresponsibility and populism,” he said.

“Citizens must now decide who has the plan and will to handle the economic challenges,” he added, declaring he will not be handing out promises in the campaign and that Pasok has no exit strategy for Greece’s deepening recession.

Though many New Democracy MPs and ministers bitterly opposed early elections - many for fear of losing their seats - all rallied behind the PM once he had declared the elections.

Parliament vice-speaker Yiorgos Sourlas opposed snap polls but is lining up behind the PM’s decision. He notes that about 21 percent of the electorate say they are undecided, and many could go to ND.

Dilemma

“When citizens weigh the capability and sharpness of the two party leaders at the poll, I think their decision will lead to an upset,” Sourlas says of the Karamanlis vs Papandreou showdown. “This dilemma will be decisive.”

Sourlas sees no chance of a post-electoral collaboration between ND and Laos or between Pasok and Syriza. He says that if no party garners a parliamentary majority, then there will be repeat elections, which under a new law will give the top party a bonus of 10 extra seats.

“I agree with the PM’s assessment that the country cannot withstand a six-month long campaign,” Deputy Foreign Minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis told this newspaper. “I don’t buy the rationale that elections spell suicide. I believe in doing battle, and I favoured serving out the term. It is not the best period. But we have a series of arguments and we will put them forth, and credibility will be decisive.”

Varvitsiotis, like other ND MPs, is not ruling out a post-electoral collaboration with Laos if ND fails to clinch a clear parliamentary majority.

“I believe that if the confluence of events showed that only ND and Laos could together form a government, then I believe that is something we could look into. I would not preclude that in advance.”


Is it really ‘political suicide’?



MANY in his parliamentary group and some in his cabinet insisted that early elections would be “political suicide”, but Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis was clearly determined to take the biggest gamble of his political career.

For weeks before Karamanlis’ announcement, many in New Democracy argued in favour of a cabinet shuffle to burnish the government’s self-proclaimed reformist image in an effort to improve its standing in the polls.

But most top ministers wanted to stay glued to their seats and, with ND trailing badly in the polls, a cabinet shakeup seemed hardly enough to turn the tide in the government’s favour.

The prime minister reportedly heard a barrage of conflicting advice from top ministers and MPs. Those opposing snap polls, such as the PM’s cousin and former transport minister Michalis Liapis and Education Minister Evripidis Stylianidis, stressed the conventional wisdom that early elections are called only if you are fairly confident you can win.

However, the latest surveys in the August 30 press had New Democracy trailing Pasok by unprecedented margins.

The Marc poll in Ethnos gave Pasok a lead of 6.2 percentage points (33.7 percent for Pasok vs 27.5 percent for ND).

It likely did not help that the government’s image had recently been further battered by public anger over the disastrous Attica wildfires, with 74 percent of those surveyed blaming the government for botching the handling of the fires.

Suicidal?

Former ND MP Yiannis Manolis, who finally resigned his parliamentary seat on August 31 after repeated threats to do so, used the term “political suicide”.

But if the polls are right, about 40 ruling MPs are expected to lose their seats if ND is defeated, and those who favoured early polls attributed the naysayers’ opposition to political self-interest.

On the other side of the fence, Finance Minister Yannis Papathanasiou and Environment Minister Yiorgos Souflias - joined by Karamanlis’ communications advisor Yiannis Loulis - were arguing for snap polls to be held in October.

The snap-polls camp was apparently motivated by a risky calculus, but one firmly based on both gloomy economic predictions of a deepening recession and the existing polling numbers.

The deep budget cuts and public sector wage and pension freezes slated for next year are certain to trigger a serious backlash and labour action by trade unions. The biggest unions were already preparing a protest to coincide with Karamanlis’ September 4 keynote address at the Thessaloniki International Trade Fair.

The government had already prepared the way for blaming Pasok for early elections. Since Papandreou has long said he would trigger elections by not supporting a consensus candidate for the presidency in March, Karamanlis argued that the country could not afford a five-month pre-electoral period amid an economic crisis.

Those arguing for snap polls had another potent argument. Despite Pasok’s impressive lead, the opposition socialists are still far short of the 41 to 42 percent of the vote needed to secure a parliamentary majority.

Matchmaking

That opens the door to a coalition government, the most likely pairings being ND-Laos or Pasok with embattled Syriza. So far, though, the parties have ruled out any such parliamentary pairings.

In the absence of any such post-electoral coalition, another general election would have to be held. In that case, ND would try to draw votes away from rightwing Laos, which in the Marc survey garnered a respectable 5.7 percent.

Pasok, as usual, would also strongly pressure Syriza voters into switching camps, though the troubled leftwing party is now polling a mere 3.2 percent, which barely gives it the necessary three-percent threshold required to enter parliament.

Even if Pasok were to garner a parliamentary majority, it would still have to implement the tough austerity measures mandated by the European Commission’s Stability Pact, requiring Greece to lower its annual budget deficit below three percent of GDP.

The popular backlash against such measures could well shrink Pasok’s base of support, allowing New Democracy to do what Pasok had threatened to do, namely using the March presidential elections to trigger a new general election.



Pasok welcomes early polls

AFTER months of clamouring for early elections, Pasok leader George Papandreou (photo) welcomed the announcement of snap elections as a wish come true - now comes the hard part.

The challenge for the socialists, if they are to govern for the first time in nine years, is to garner a parliamentary majority, something public opinion polls currently suggest they don’t have.

“The government col-lapsed under the weight of impasses which it created itself,” Papandreou said in a televised statement after the PM announced elections on September 2. “The Greek people twice gave a mandate to

the current government. Not only did the government not honour the mandate but it also failed to enforce self-evident principles and values.”

Asserting that he has a plan to bring Greece out of the current economic crisis, Papandreou framed the election as a battle between “neo-conservative policy, political patronage and the lack of transparency that brought today’s tragic crisis for our country” and the “progressive solution and proposal of Pasok”.

Papandreou was expected to have a draft of his party tickets by the week of September 7, which would then be formally approved by the party’s national council.

Papandreou used a large September 3 party gathering in Thiseio in Athens, marking the 35th anniversary of Pasok’s founding, as the first major campaign appearance, highlighting the party’s traditional values and criticising the current government‘s record.

The air of confidence exuded by the socialist leader was based both on his party’s six percentage point lead over ND and on the prevailing air of disappointment in the New Democracy party base.

Pasok’s political strategy for the campaign, party members told this newspaper, will be to project a calm sense of confidence and avoid the extreme polarising tactics of past campaigns which could help to rally the disgruntled ND base.

Veteran Pasok MP Telemachus Hytiris told the Athens News that PM Kostas Karamanlis called snap elections “because he could not do otherwise”.

“Karamanlis’ call for elections was simply confirmation of his failures and impasses. He admitted that he can no longer handle the mounting problems, mainly economic,” Hytiris said. “He used the international crisis and blamed George Papandreou as a pretext, but Karamanlis was and is the prime minister.”

The Pasok founding member said the September 3 announcement by the PM’s cousin, former transport minister Michalis Liapis, that he will not stand for election, is a clear evidence that ND members themselves expect a routing.

Pasok’s campaign will acknowledge the huge fiscal and political problems that the country faces, while arguing that the socialists have the knowledge, experience and responsibility to address them effectively.

Still, the latest surveys deny Pasok the electoral strength needed to garner a parliamentary majority and it remains to be seen whether its platform will be persuasive enough to convince the electorate.