ND, PASOK: Can they be partners again?

The very real possibility that no single party will win a majority of the seats in the 300-member Parliament, even after a second election next year, is leading the ruling conservative New Democracy to reconsider a coalition government with socialist PASOK, currently running third in opinion polls.

The greatest of enemies for more than three decades, during which they alternated in government, the conservatives and the socialists, both weakened by the protracted debt crisis, found themselves together in government, with occasional smaller partners, from 2012 to 2015.

During that time, their rhetoric converged a lot, helped also by the personal chemistry between the party leaders, conservative Antonis Samaras and socialist Evangelos Venizelos. Even in opposition, from 2015 to 2019, with new leaders emerging, Kyriakos Mitsotakis for the conservatives and the late Fofi Gennimata for the socialists, relations may not have been as warm but both parties were similarly critical of the leftist-led government.

When Nikos Androulakis, a European Parliament lawmaker, was elected in 2021, as the more moderate of the two alternatives, the socialists gradually rediscovered their anti-conservative roots, without sparing SYRIZA their criticism. After all, they needed to affirm their distinct identity and not be seen as a prop for either of the two big parties.

Still, Mitsotakis and his aides were favorable to an eventual collaboration with the socialists: There was even talk of a coalition after the first election, where no party is set to win a majority, for a “strong government” and to avoid a second election.

Now, it appears that any chances of a conservative-socialist coalition have been scuppered by the “spyware scandal.” Androulakis’ cellphone was found to have been hacked with spyware. Mitsotakis denied any personal knowledge. The affair led to the resignations of the director of the National Intelligence Service and of Mitsotakis’ own chief of staff – and nephew. Unsurprisingly, Androulakis’ stance toward Mitsotakis has hardened.

Can the relationship be salvaged? Ioannis Bratakos, Mitsotakis’ new chief of staff, told Kathimerini a couple of weeks ago that “no collaboration between two pro-European, reformist parties can be ruled out. You must never say never in politics.”