In… Andreas Papandreou are pinning their hopes on PASOK to halt its ever-declining poll numbers.
The situation in PASOK is desperate. The polls continue to place the party in third place, and indeed far behind ELAS. of Alexis Tsipras, and now its leaders appear to be hoping for a rallying cry in the name of… Andreas Papandreou.
The 30 years since the death of PASOK’s founder are turning into multi-day commemorative events aimed at bringing back into the spotlight the man who founded the party and managed to lead it to the top, while also featuring today’scurrent party leaders and Nikos Androulakis to present themselves as… his successors.
The events, references, articles, and statements of all kinds revolve around Andreas Papandreou, with praise for the years he governed—though, of course, not for everything he did, the actions and omissions that created the conditions for excessive borrowing as well as the mismanagement of EU and national funds.
Building on an idealized memory and catchphrases like “PASOK, the good old days”, Harilaou Trikoupi is unleashing its final weapon onto the political scene, which is more reminiscent of a desperate political gambit aimed at former PASOK members and those who claim that back then they used to tie up their dogs with… sausages and forget that the bill came later.
This image illustrates the state of PASOK. With no program and no alternative proposals or solutions, with doomsday rhetoric at the forefront and populism leading the charge, it missed the opportunity it had over the past three years to establish itself as a genuine official opposition and as the second pole of the political system.
Now it is running behind Alexis Tsipras’s ELAS, seeking—even if by a single vote—victory, but for second place.
The “Oh, Andreas” uttered by a party MP in front of Andreas Papandreou’s grave perhaps best captures what is happening.
