The 50th anniversary of PASOK and the timing
The socialist PASOK party celebrates 50 years since its foundation and, having escaped the existential danger it faced about a decade ago during the Greek debt crisis, it is breathlessly heading for an internal showdown that is absolutely certain to define its future.
It is doubtful we can speak of a center-left trend, at least based on the current political conditions. The recent election contests showed that voters change camps with great ease, without feeling any emotional or other commitment toward the parties. For PASOK, the timing is overall positive, as it seems that, first of all, the main opposition SYRIZA is in a prolonged crisis, if not heading toward its ignominious end as a political force with claims to power.
At the same time, the ruling conservative New Democracy party is clearly alienating some voters who had identified in 2019 and 2023 with the personal political profile of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, after turning to the right to satisfy its internal hard-right wing. It is clear that New Democracy can no longer leave its right wing unprotected, exposed to multiple political pressures.
The party founded by Andreas Papandreou in 1974 came to power in 1981 because the “disadvantaged,” in addition to being a rhetorical figure, also reflected a social reality. 1981 is far away, as are the social conditions of that time. In 2024 the challenges are slightly different, but at their core is an undeniable process: the thinning – if not the disappearance – of the middle class and the gradual creation of a two-speed society, with the first amassing more wealth than ever before and the second struggling to survive in a state that only provides services of an increasingly lower quality to citizens who support it with their taxes.
One can claim, and rightly so, that these problems are not exclusively Greek, but are also transforming societies throughout the West. However, in Greece this problem is linked in the long term to the geopolitical crises facing a country with these characteristics.
In 1974, PASOK was born after the fall of the junta and coincided with the rebirth of the right by New Democracy founder Konstantinos Karamanlis. Can 2024 lay the foundations for PASOK’s return to the political fore, focusing on the current problems facing the country, or will it remain all talk and no substance, waving the vintage green sun of its logo and sticking with the confrontational language of its founder?
