Whims and disagreements
Neither the center-right nor, more importantly, the country can take another Mitsotakis-Samaras tiff that will cause political turmoil. It cannot take another rift between ruling New Democracy’s pro-Mitsotakis and pro-Karamanlis camps either. It has already been through both, with this and the previous generation.
The Greek people went through a lot for more than a decade. They paid a heavy price for the arrogant and wasteful ways of the political system, which resulted in bankruptcy and crippling austerity. Then it paid another heavy price for SYRIZA’s opportunistic experiments. Now it is enjoying a period of political stability for the first time in many years. A large part of society is under tremendous pressure, but there is no doubt that the insecurity about what tomorrow will bring is gone. The country also earned back its international credibility with a lot of effort. It would be nothing short of a crime if Greece were to go off the rails again.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis was elected leader of New Democracy and won two national elections with a very clear majority. The two former prime ministers were put out by the fact that the next generation, rather than the leader they were backing, “took over the shop.” Their complaints are not entirely unmerited, of course. The prime minister could pick up the phone every once in a while to ask to see them or to seek their opinion on some important matter. But he has not.
Indeed, the first few years of his government’s term in office were marked by a certain arrogance from the Maximos Mansion toward top party cadres, while the idea of a policy-making committee never really got off the ground. The phone-tapping affair came as a jolt to many and caused deep rifts in what had been trustful relationships. Mistakes were also made with the dosages in the recipe for keeping the center satisfied and the right happy, with the biggest demonstration of this being the legalization of same sex-marrige – not the law itself, but the unnecessary celebrations afterward.
There is also a hypothetical disagreement over government policy vis-a-vis Greek-Turkish relations. I say hypothetical because a) no one knows what it’s about and b) no one knows whether and when a tangible agreement will be reached. The impression has been created that only people who really know what’s on the negotiating table with Ankara are the leaders and foreign ministers of the two countries. Kostas Karamanlis and Antonis Samaras have indicated that they would oppose any deal that they found detrimental for Greece, such as one, for example, that would entail starting the conversation on maritime zones at 6 nautical miles everywhere. They are right to express their opposition, even though we should also be asking why they did not extend Greece’s territorial waters back in their day, when it would have been easier from a strategic perspective. However, they would not be alone opposing a bad deal for Greece: The deal would still have to pass through Parliament and face scrutiny from those who know the issues and their history.
In a mature country and a mature party, no one can govern alone, no one can demand to govern from the backseat and, most importantly, no one can do something that may destabilize the country on a whim.
