Bakoyannis dismisses Samaras criticism of government

Dora Bakoyannis, a former minister and prominent MP and member of governing New Democracy, has dismissed Monday’s scathing comments by former conservative prime minister Antonis Samaras leveled against the government, as being reactionary and petulant.

“Mr Samaras was expressing his personal bitterness over the fact that the others won’t ‘play’ with him; that’s my takeaway from his speech,” Bakoyannis, who is also the sister of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, told Skai TV on Tuesday morning, hours after Samaras and another former conservative prime minister, Kostas Karamanlis, appeared at a book launch in Athens where they treated the government to a drubbing.

“They gave two completely different speeches; Karamanlis gave us an analysis about Europe and the national issues, things on which we all agree,” Boakoyannis said on Tuesday, reserving the brunt of her reactions for Samaras.

Indeed, the former prime minister, who led the country from 2012 to 2015 and the center-right New Democracy party from 2009 to 2015, and is regarded as an influential voice of its extreme conservative faction, was particularly outspoken on Monday night, accusing the prime minister and his government of leading the party astray from its core values, of failing to heed the demands of its grassroots supporters and of mishandling major foreign policy issues.

He described New Democracy’s worse-than-expected showing in last month’s European Parliament elections as a “resounding slap” and accused Mitsotakis of making the party the “smallest and most phobic it has ever been.” 

“Saying that ND, with 41% [of the national vote] and 156 MPs is small and phobic, when we have surpassed the 18% of the Samaras years… there really needs to be some moderation in what one claims,” Bakoyannis responded in her comments on Tuesday.

“I am not hearing these things that Samaras says from the party base. ND has departed from its principles and values? It’s ridiculous,” she said. “Look at ND’s founding declaration from 50 years ago; it could have been written yesterday. This is the declaration the Mitsotakis government is following: liberalism and social sensibility.”

On the question of liberal social policy Samaras was particularly critical of the prime minister’s decision to legalize marriage and adoption for same-sex couples, saying that by doing so, he ignored the party majority o and Samaras’ own warnings.

“If this is how the government treats even a former prime minister and [party] president, then why shouldn’t the people regard you as arrogant, gentlemen?” Samaras said in his speech at the book launch at Athens’ War Museum on Monday night.

“New Democracy has always won when it has had the support of the center,” Bakoyannis told Skai on Tuesday, in response to Samaras’ suggestions about the direction Mitsotakis was taking the party.