A renewed ND-PASOK rivalry?
It is all but certain that the election for the leadership of the socialist PASOK party will be decided in a runoff.
It is also almost certain that PASOK will be the de facto main opposition to the ruling New Democracy, even though it is still lagging SYRIZA in the number of MPs, with 32 to 35. But further defections from SYRIZA could change that.
Several commentators are talking about a sort of revival of so-called “bipolar” politics, when New Democracy and PASOK were indisputably the two largest parties, and bitter rivals, from 1977 to 2012, until the financial crisis forced them to become coalition partners. Then PASOK’s support plunged to around 5% in 2015, before a recent, still modest, revival.
This time, the two historical rivals will not dominate politics to the same extent. Despite SYRIZA’s unraveling, support for leftist parties is still considerable – support for the extreme right even more so. But, even with the fragmentation on the polar opposites expected to continue, a hung parliament, with no single party having an overall majority, is quite likely after the next election, whether it takes place in 2027, as scheduled, or earlier.
Conservatives are of two minds about the PASOK contest: They would like a leader weak enough not to challenge them but they must also consider who would make a better potential partner. New Democracy plans to gauge the new leader’s intentions with legislation that, they say, should have bipartisan support.
