Many top officials of PASOK believe that the race for second place is definitively lost and are placing the blame on Nikos Androulakis.
Lately, PASOK has been a boiling cauldron. Behind closed doors, most party officials are personally blaming Nikos Androulakis for the fact that he spent two years as the official opposition leader, at least according to the polls, and failed to change the rules of the game in favor of PASOK.
A well-known member of parliament from the Harilaos Trikoupis faction, who had clashed with Pavlos Geroulanos over allegations of a rigged vote, spewed venom in Parliament against Nikos Androulakis and ultimately acknowledged that Geroulanos’s warnings were justified. In fact, he directed his very harsh criticism of Nikos Androulakis in front of lawmakers from other parties, including members of New Democracy as well as SYRIZA.
The source of the grumbling, however, also concerns the political survival of many Green Party MPs: whether in third or fourth place, with these poll numbers, PASOK will lose many seats in districts where top party officials are elected.
A longtime PASOK official in Thessaloniki remarked during Androulakis’s in the city that the president now has more former SYRIZA members in his inner circle, such as Petros Pappas and Rania Thraskia, rather than the officials who had fought alongside the party for years. Moreover, the party’s traditional base in the country’s second-largest city has drifted away, as all the old-guard members have distanced themselves from the leadership of Androulakis.
Scenarios of despair
Finally, many at Harilaou Trikoupi accuse Nikos Androulakis of driving many party officials—such as Nikos Saoulidis and Marinos Skandamis, while they fear that Haris Kastanidis and Odysseas Konstantinopoulos.
In this context, PASOK is eagerly searching for new high-profile figures for its supposed expansion, while scenarios for cooperation with various parties are also being considered. For example, rumors are swirling about Nina Kasimati, Theodora Tzakri, Evangelos Apostolakis and Katerina Notopoulou, as PASOK seeks to gain momentum from the former prime minister with the help of SYRIZA officials.
In fact, Harilaou Trikoupi is reviewing a list of candidates featuring well-known names from the worlds of culture, sports, and journalism, with the aim of strengthening its electoral slates. Finally, in addition to reports of an approach to Stefanos Kasselakis—which, note, is still ongoing— a collaboration with the officials who will remain in SYRIZA was also discussed.
