Plan of siege of the Center by Al. Tsipras

Her Nikis Zorba

SYRIZA’s anemic poll performance, which has led to an increase in Alexis Tsipras’ decibels and an extreme polarization climate that is usually cultivated just before the national polls, owes much (not only, of course) the decision of the SYRIZA president to change sudden strategy, leaning to his right.

The Chronicles

A strategy that was launched at the beginning of last week both with his choice to give a TV interview to Sky after 2.5 years and with the content of the signals he sent through it: Address to the disappointed voters of Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

Tsipras’s messages intensified as the day progressed and through “loudspeakers”. Statements, that is, of its executives. Until George Tsipras arrived, if. SYRIZA’s Chief of Defense, to state publicly that SYRIZA could cooperate in the future with a part of the ND, with the exception of Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

Given all this, scenarios have been raging in the background in recent weeks and, thanks to opinion polls, concern the day after the elections. The difference between N.D.-SYRIZA is still brutal, but the percentages of N.D. discount second ballots, since the ruling party has said through its leader that it seeks autonomy and not a co-operative government.

SYRIZA found space and “drilled” in the combination of these various scenarios, openly flirting with the “center-right” public that has been dissatisfied with the government’s performance, mainly in pandemic management and accuracy.

This plan also includes Mr. Tsipras’s dense statements these days, which start from turning a blind eye to the “middle class”, which he admitted that his government had unjustly and disproportionately burdened, but because of the Memoranda, and end up in separation of the “healthy” N.D. from the “neoliberal” of Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

For the time being, Koumoundourou sarcastically faces the scenarios for cooperation with the Center-Right, but she does not deny at all the findings that she has set her sights on “interfering” with the “blue” electoral tank.

This is not the first time that the scenario of SYRIZA’s enlargement to its right is heard. This view is anything but new. At the pan-Hellenic conference held by SYRIZA in the summer, as a “station” on the way to its conference (with many scheduled for its holding on April 14), there was an extensive discussion on it.

Alexis Tsipras had spoken about the need for SYRIZA to win the “middle ground”, while the position of the party secretary, Olgas Gerovasilis, was clear, addressing the center-right voters: “We want the party that society needs and not a “Let us also address the center-right citizens who were deceived by the Mitsotakis government”, he had stated during the work of the Conference, on July 3.

A few executives of the wider presidential majority have an understanding with Mrs. Gerovasili. The internal party minority (“Umbrella”) obviously disagrees with the middle ground, hence the systematic public statements of executives belonging to Tassi, such as N. Filis. This is the next bet for SYRIZA, after all, for the next two months: The clarification of the internal party balances that will take place on the field, at the congress. Until then, the pre-conference dialogue will be conducted in terms of “stealth war” between the Trends.

Is Mr. Tsipras investing to provoke the pro-Karamanli reflexes of the center-right voters? Undoubtedly. This is the reason why he decided that he would no longer talk about “right”, but about “Mitsotakis perception”, referring to the government of Konstantinos Mitsotakis, adorning it with terms such as “socially analgesic”, “neoliberal” etc.

The leadership of Koumoundourou, moreover, has the certainty that the current government has lost the argument for tax cuts of the middle class, since these reliefs were “gnawed” by the increases in goods and electricity.

PASOK and micro-megalism

In the millstones of the dilemma “who will you rule with”, which will intensify as the time of the elections approaches, PASOK-KINAL is in danger of being “crushed”, which is still on a brilliant popular course.

Nikos Androulakis’s party is trying to escape from this dilemma and he himself sought the solution in a narrative: Give PASOK those percentages that will help it become a central political player, overturning the current scenario.

Commonly, Charilaou Trikoupi seeks “liberation” from the persistent political and journalistic questions “with whom will you rule?”? “Are you discussing a government with the ND? A government with SYRIZA?” This will emerge from the conference scheduled for next June.

The aim is to reconstruct and reorganize, to establish the framework of the messages for a government of social democratic principles. They will not make placements, exercises on paper on theoretical poll profits, before they see what the “ballot box” brings out and not the polls.

The climate, therefore, is: work and reorganization and we see for the electoral impact that we will have before the real judge, that of the ballot box. “We will not grow small”, anointing ourselves – before the elections – to local regulators. Depending on the percentages we will collect, we will move on Monday after the elections.

The strategy is clear and the message is understandable.