Minor reshuffle to rectify weaknesses

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Wednesday made targeted interventions in the composition of his government to enhance, as a senior official said, “its effectiveness.”

More specifically, the decision to replace the political leadership of the Ministry of Citizen Protection, both minister and deputy minister, were made to bolster the conservative administration’s security agenda.

Amid the elevation of crime as the second biggest problem for citizens behind high prices and the re-emergence of domestic terrorism as well as a series of other failures, the changes were seen as inevitable.

The return of Michalis Chrysochoidis for a fifth term in the Ministry of Citizen Protection triggered a small domino effect in the cabinet.

Adonis Georgiadis, who also served there in the conservative government of Antonis Samaras in the previous decade, moved to the Health Ministry from that of Labor. He is replaced by Domna Michailidou, who was deputy education minister. 

Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis was upgraded to deputy minister to the prime minister, with additional responsibility for communication, while Ioanna Lytrivi was promoted to deputy minister of education and Andreas Nikolakopoulos to deputy minister of citizen protection.

The government of New Democracy, which was re-elected in July, has a comfortable majority of eight seats in the country’s 300-seat parliament. The key ministries of Foreign Affairs, Finance and Defense remained unchanged. 

The changes in the government makeup also brought reactions from the opposition parties, with PASOK saying they are a reflection of “the lack of staff and the failure of the so-called ‘executive’ government of Mr Mitsotakis.”

“Mr Chrysochoidis returns to the Ministry of Citizen Protection after being removed as a failure in the wake of the 2021 fires and with the credentials of his ineffective presence in the Ministry of Health, as the national health system is collapsing and being systematically devalued,” it said.

Communist KKE referred to an “acceleration of the so-called ‘reform’ agenda of the New Democracy government, which for the working-people’s majority means new burdens.”

The New Left, a splinter party of SYRIZA, said the reshuffle was a “recycling of ministers who have been tried and failed.”