PASOK leadership challenger Evangelos Venizelos yesterday accused the current party president of making “divisive and threatening” statements during a televised interview.

The Thessaloniki MP, who is Papandreou’s main opponent, made the accusation during a luncheon meeting with journalists as he attempted to boost his campaign.

Opinion polls this week have suggested that Venizelos’s lead has either been eroded or overturned by Papandreou.

The former culture minister attributed this to Papandreou’s “conspiracy theories,” in reference to a statement that the PASOK leader made at the national council last weekend in which he claimed that some party members had undermined his efforts to win the general election.

Venizelos said that if voted the next leader of PASOK on November 11, or the following week, he would “change everything” within the party and offer a different type of opposition to the government, which would lead PASOK to win the next general election.