The Maximos Mansion, the Prime Minister’s office, is watching Antonis Samaras carefully plot his moves regarding the creation of his new party one step at a time. His most recent intervention, in Heraklion, Crete, made clear and explicit that he has made up his mind and will proceed, yet he revealed nothing about the timeline for any official announcements.
The government camp is not only worried about the direct electoral damage Samaras’ party will inflict on New Democracy’s vote share. They can see that the mere existence of the ongoing discussion — made all the harder to counter by the fact that no announcement has yet been made — is itself causing them political wear and tear.
It is a discussion that creates corrosive conditions for the government, as it gives disaffected ND voters the sense that a concrete alternative exists within their political family, one that would allow them to vote against New Democracy without feeling they are abandoning their political camp.
It is also generating visible awkwardness in the PM’s office handling of Samaras. On one hand, for as long as he has no party, the government doesn’t want to go after him too hard, so as not to slam the door on the voter base he represents. On the other, it keeps trying to undercut his sharp criticism across a wide range of issues — from foreign policy to the wiretapping scandal and corruption cases — with pointed jabs.
On “Professional Worriers”
Tellingly, today at 5:30 p.m., at his address to the ND Political Committee that will elect Konstantinos Kyranakis as its new secretary, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is expected, according to government sources, to dwell on “the patriotic character of the party” — with government insiders saying this will also serve as his answer to what he has called the “so-called professional worriers.”
That phrase was one Mitsotakis himself had previously used to launch a personal attack on Samaras, after the latter accused the government over a clause in the Chevron contract, prompting Samaras to fire back by calling the prime minister an “amateur complacent.”
The End of the Outreach
The latest Samaras intervention in Crete effectively ended the Maximos Mansions’ short-lived pivot away from attacks. The government had briefly shifted to a softer approach, even extending what amounted to a public call for unity toward the former prime minister, in an attempt to appeal to his audience and the voters preparing to follow him to his new party.
Maximos Mansion quickly reverted to the jabs about “personal agendas” and “bitterness,” with government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis, when asked about the Crete speech, responding: “We live in a democracy, everyone does as they wish and makes their own choices — we’re talking about a former prime minister. What I will say is that society, whether we’re talking about ND voters, potential voters, or people who have no intention of voting for it, cares about solutions, measurable results, and answers to the day-to-day demands citizens raise about their lives. I don’t think the debate about whether a personal agenda, bitterness, grievances — call it what you will — is going to be turned into a party is what people actually care about.”
“We Will Compete Politically”
On Tuesday, ND spokeswoman Alexandra Sdoukou said that Samaras founding a new party “is certainly not the most welcome thing,” but added that “everyone makes their own choices” and that “if Mr. Samaras wishes to form a party, we will compete against him politically as opponents, and the Greek people will judge that when the time comes to vote” — effectively previewing the government’s approach toward the new party.
The official party line, as put forward by the spokeswoman, is that the Samaras party will not affect ND voters. Behind the scenes, however, the government privately reads the situation differently: the new party will target, first, the disillusioned ND electorate that has retreated to the couch of abstention and currently refuses to vote either for ND or for any other party outside the right-wing camp; second, voters who remain nominal ND supporters but are today deeply dissatisfied with the government; and third, voters who have already left ND and are currently casting ballots for parties to its right.
A Barrier Either Way
In other words, the governing party fears that Samaras’ party — whether it directly poaches ND voters or simply acts as a barrier preventing disillusioned voters from returning to the fold — will inflict damage on both the government’s ambitions and the electoral arithmetic. Those ambitions range from the outright majority that today looks distant, to the psychological threshold of 30 percent, and down to the 25 percent mark that triggers a seat bonus and currently stands as the government’s first realistic target.
From the Samaras camp, the response is that for its declining numbers the government “should look in the mirror,” while sources with close knowledge of the proceedings say it is now considered certain that no developments on the new party will occur before the fall.
