New Democracy’s dominance

Is something really going on in Greece’s politics? A cursory answer would be negative, that nothing worthwhile is happening. Of course, Metron Analysis’ March 21 poll finding that “Nobody” takes the lead after five years with 39% of respondents providing that answer to the question “Who is most suitable for prime minister?” is important. However, incumbent Kyriakos Mitsotakis follows closely behind with 33%, with the other leaders falling way behind with 7% and lower.

ND’s electoral dominance is not accompanied by an acceptance of its practiced policies – on the contrary

For the first time, the government has suffered an appreciable decline of 5.1 percentage points in a month in voter intention; however, excluding the share of the undecided, blank or spoiled votes, ruling New Democracy retains 31.4% – as much as the opposition parties SYRIZA, PASOK and the New Left combined. So, the ruling party’s political dominance is eroding, but it remains strong. Those who believe that the country is moving in the wrong direction (66%) and those who negatively evaluate the conservative government (66%) and the prime minister (61%) have increased. At the same time, more than seven out of 10 believe the government has failed to manage issues such as inflation, crime, natural disasters, health, education and the gangrene of corruption. Therefore, ND’s electoral dominance is not accompanied by an acceptance of its practiced policies – on the contrary. Is this another snapshot of the moment or do these findings foreshadow something more?

There are three possible scenarios: First, the scandals that have marked the five years of ND’s government continue to affect the collective consciousness below the surface: The wiretapping scandal, the unforgivable negligence to prevent tragedies like that in Tempe last year, the brazen management of citizens’ personal data with the leak of emails from the Interior Ministry are pouring poison into public opinion.

In the second, the government did not take advantage of the political space it enjoyed over those five years to respond to the great expectations that accompanied it, to build broad consensuses for the mature reforms that the country needs. Combined with the great redistribution of wealth through greedflation and the clientelistic management of European funds, it has produced social despondency.

In the third scenario, we could say that there is a strong preference for stability – someone has to govern the country. But, as developments across Europe show, when the invocation of stability tends to give rise to suspicions of being a fig leaf to impose unfair and/or deadlocked policies, there comes a time when what was taken for granted is no more.

Therefore, if the findings of the poll confirm that ND dominates because its political opponents are not convincing, that its strength is basically their own weakness, and with the reasonable assumption that its dominance is not eternal or a given, perhaps at the same time this might be foreshadowing a change in the current architecture of the party system that will overturn its unsustainable imbalance. One possibility is that some parties will continue to crumble, while the far-right and other fringe groupings will be strengthened.

A second possibility, if the opinion polls for the results of the European Parliament elections are confirmed (which see ND winning but with a lower percentage and opposition parties remaining far behind), is that it will open, on the night of the European elections, an important topic: Not, of course, who came second or third, but what can or must be done, and who can or wants to contribute to the reorganization of the political space on the left of the conservatives. Somewhere there, ND’s dominance will begin to be threatened.