SYRIZA: Early elections and revival of the anti-SYRIZA front

Her Nikis Zorba

Did the anti-SYRIZA front ever “break” which has already dominated politically since the SYRIZA government and gave Kyriakos Mitsotakis clear autonomy in the 2019 elections? Estimates differ even within the walls of Koumoundourou, but there is a common assumption: It has weakened in the last year – at least – if not completely, but satisfactorily, for the main opposition party.

Ballot boxes

This is, after all, Koumoundourou’s bet: The complete collapse of the anti-SYRIZA front in time and as the government’s policy unfolds. How much time is left, however, in the main opposition party until it succeeds is the crucial question. Based on the pre-election context and given that regardless of the government’s deterioration, SYRIZA is showing stagnant percentages, it is extremely likely that political developments will overtake it.

Regardless of the request for ballots made by Alexis Tsipras in Parliament during the vote on the Budget at the end of ’21, a move mainly of a strategic nature that signals anything but SYRIZA’s readiness to reclaim power, any early ballots in the current the main opposition party “as if ready for a long time”.

And although SYRIZA has not completely settled on whether it sees the dramatic developments in Ukraine as a factor accelerating political developments or, conversely, as slowing them down, the election scenarios that return without a Ukrainian before the horizon and still bring the ballot box from the summer they create pressing conditions: To organize partisan, to close internal party wounds, to lay down his own narrative against what Kyriakos Mitsotakis will project about the need for a stable and credible government – against the “weak”, de facto, SYRIZA’s narrative about the formation of a progressive government. Weak not only because of KINAL’s stance, which suggests an autonomous course, but also because of the condition set by the SYRIZA president himself: In order to form a progressive government, SYRIZA must be the first to cut the thread of the elections. A government with a coalition of a second and a third party, ie a minority, is not meant.

The poll data, therefore, do not help SYRIZA for claims in the simple analog ballot box. However, they see as “key” the percentages as they will be formed on the Sunday of the first elections. If the N.D. does not succeed. to cancel the character of “European elections” that he has given to the ballot box of the simple proportional, if Mr. Mitsotakis has an undoubted strategy of an autonomous ND, then they expect a change of political correlations in the second ballot box. With the harsh polarization between the two major parties and the equally fierce political dilemmas, SYRIZA keeps alive its hopes for a change in political relations.

Nationally

Although there is no majority estimate in Koumoundourou – at least not yet – that the polls can be set up even before the autumn of ’22, commonly in the early summer, they are on the alert for a strategy of reviving the anti-SYRIZA front operated collectively for the N.D. opposite and a leak to KINAL, which is also reflected in the polls.

In short, observing the attitude of the Prime Minister in Parliament regarding the developments in Ukraine and the repeated statements “we have always been on the right side of history”, do not rule out that Kyriakos Mitsotakis will suddenly step on the electoral button , at the base: With Western principles and values ​​and stability or with adventures – and not just in the economy, but national ones.

With a two-sided fighting strategy, KINAL

The Movement for Change said “yes” to sending defense equipment to Ukraine, despite criticism of the government for its lack of information from other political forces.

Nikos Androulakis, however, followed his own line on “we belong to the West”, treating relevant dividing lines as obsolete. Instead, KINAL insists on a strategy of two-sided struggle against both the government and SYRIZA, in the context of highlighting the hypocritical behavior of both sides.

Hence, KINAL executives speak of an “ambiguous attitude of the official opposition”, which often shows the reluctance of its MEPs to vote in favor of human rights violations in Russia and Belarus and beyond.

He makes the same criticism of the ruling party, for which he states that, in contradiction with the “crowns of Kyriakos Mitsotakis that his party always has a clear position, the attitude of the blue MEPs does not appear as such.

In this context, in fact, PASOK-KINAL executives mentioned as typical examples:

– In December, in a resolution on Ukraine and the situation on its borders, SYRIZA MEPs voted to abstain.

– In September 2021, in a resolution for the United Arab Emirates, the EPP and the MEPs of the New Democracy voted abstention (the equivalent of the “present” in the Greek Parliament).

– In a resolution on the violation of human rights in Hong Kong, in July 2021, both SYRIZA and N.D. voted abstention.

– In April 2021, in a resolution on Navalny and a gathering of Russian soldiers on the border with Ukraine, SYRIZA had again voted to abstain.

Recently, N.D. MEPs voted against an amendment against the Russian oligarchs tabled by the Eurogroup of the Left.