Battle for dominance of the center-left
Blame game ensues between empowered PASOK and SYRIZA as latter reels from crushing defeat
With New Democracy set to comfortably win an outright majority in the second election, which will probably take place on June 25, a relentless political battle has already begun for the dominance of the center-left of the political spectrum.
SYRIZA’s disappointing 20% tally raises reasonable doubts as to whether the opposition party can be considered to represent the clearly broader political space of the center.
PASOK’s 11.5% has whetted the appetite of its leader Nikos Androulakis and his cadres to seek to exploit the momentum created by the impressive retreat of SYRIZA and the personal political defeat of its leader Alexis Tsipras, to restore their party to the role on the stage of the political center. Buoyed by its performance on Sunday, PASOK is now seeking to assume the role of an authentic representative of the center-left, harking back to its heyday as a major political force.
The ensuing battle between the two parties will be pivotal as it will probably decide their future roles and, at least in SYRIZA’s case, possibly its leadership the day after.
What was clear as of Monday is that SYRIZA is abandoning the charm offensive with regard to PASOK that dominated the election campaign, when Tsipras almost stubbornly tried to secure even a hint of a signal from PASOK for possible cooperation after the elections, but to no avail.
Instead, SYRIZA is now signaling that while it will insist on sending out messages of unity in the future for the center-left, it will seek to offset PASOK’s efforts to expand its influence.
“We will not give it an inch,” party officials stress.
At the same time, a blame game strategy is also being adopted, targeting PASOK, which SYRIZA accused of refusing to join its effort to rally the “front of progressive forces” to defeat the ruling conservatives of New Democracy.
PASOK, it claims, was only interested in its own empowerment and the entrenchment of its electorate, which created favorable conditions for Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ strategy.
The response was immediate from PASOK, which referred to a “kiss of life to the government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis” from Tsipras. It was accompanied by references to SYRIZA’s dangerous positions on national issues, overtaxation of the middle class, and talk of “local currencies.”
Tsipras’ political downhill slide, it notes, is proportional to his electoral downhill slide.
