Lately, voters, members, and PASOK executives have been busy gobbling up the polls.
Now they have remembered that there are many in Greece and this view is defended by officials who are well aware of what is happening in Europe, that badly given and vote estimate and much more. If some leftist sect would say this I would understand. But for the opposition party, the party that ruled for half of the post-revolutionary years and never showed this behaviour even when it was being mauled by Syriza and found itself in the 4%-5% range, to say this is troubling.
Suddenly they have discovered another world and are they trying to remind us of behaviours of the more extreme SYRIZA cadres in the era of hostility and toxicity? I would expect them to at least understand that they look like something is not working for them, like something is bothering them and perhaps scaring them. They’re creating a problematic image on their own, and that’s a mistake, because I don’t think any polling firm is going to be scared of the climate.
It can’t be believed, of course, that something has suddenly bitten them or that bad polling is bringing them down. Ultimately, if there are polls that show them taking off, let them tell those companies to release them to the public so that it can be seen who the “bad guys”, the “riggers” and “stooges of the cabal” are. Something is happening in substance, they see some problems that don’t allow them to rise dramatically. That’s the truth and they know it all too well. What was that good old ad saying? Between Us Metaxas“.
Let’s take it in order, though. Just a year and a half ago, in late November 2024, coming out of the presidential election process, PASOK averaged 18.9% in the polls, in the triple-blind vote estimate on all measures! In fact, the OPINION POLL put it at 20%. Then it was time for a regrouping of the forces in the field, consolidating those high percentages and trying to increase them. However, in 2025 it slumped to 13%-13.5% figures that at times went as high as 12.5%. And there was also the period of the rallies for the anniversary of the Tempi, which saw it come in third behind Liberty Alliance which then made a splash. In a couple of months it was back in second place again, and again in the 12.5%-13.5% range, not because it went up, but because Pλεύsi dropped and so it passed 2025, to get to the last couple of months showing a 1%-1.5% rise and being around 14.5%.
In short, PASOK, instead of moving forward with momentum when it was at the top, because in politics opportunities are not often and generously given, got kneeled. Instead of capitalizing on the fact that it was first in the European elections in the Centre, it did everything it could to hand over the area to K. Mitsotakis again, so that even when ND was falling, it did not benefit.
Instead of taking advantage of the fact of Syriza’s gradual and increasingly collapse, in order to draw strength by choosing the path of a supposedly leftist political tactic, it did not benefit from the Left either.On the contrary, it was competing in the same space with SYRIZA, Plysi Eleftherias, Nea Aristerias, giving space to the left as well.
Having a permanently blurred message and straddling the line between the role of an institutional opposition as a potential governing force and just a figurehead of an indeterminate form of sterile anti-right-wing discourse, it simply did not convince anyone. And he was wasting time and conceding space with aplomb. And it was leaving room for the theory of this infamous centre-left convergence to develop, which only did him harm. And he showed that he could learn nothing from the experience of Tsipras in 2019-2023, which showed that by lambasting everything, by flattening everything, by seeing a Greece that is starving and dying outside hospitals, you go from 32% to 18%.
And so it goes on in 2026, holding a Congress that only resulted in one thing: That he will never work with ND.More importantly. But he did not answer what he would do, how he would do it, and who he would march with. It thus lacks the image of a party with a clear alternative.As if the above were not enough, even the rise to 14.5%, which will show whether it is a flash in the pan, whether it has continuity or not, leaves it without an electoral target.
In the recent OPINION POLL for ACTION 24, only 5.6% said they believed PASOK could become the first party. So the climate is getting harder and the tactic of accusations of mafia, parastate, gang, etc., is not helping PASOK.
Same goes for not contributing to the election of new Independent Authority leaders or the position that I am not voting for anything on the constitutional revision, even if ND agrees with PASOK proposals. Besides, in the above-mentioned survey, only 10.5% stated that they agreed with PASOK’s opposition policy and at the same time the president of PASOK appeared to be chosen by 5.8% as the most suitable candidate for prime minister.
In short, these indicators are not the best for the course of PASOK.Because neither the opposition he is doing is enthusiastic, nor can 95% see him as first, thus with the possibility of governing. As if that were not enough, it is a matter of days or even weeks the emergence of a Tsipras party and a Karystianos party.
It is obvious that the existence of these two parties will more or less affect PASOK. How much will be seen in the first polls after the establishment of both, but it would be naive to believe that the losses will be zero. Dthere is therefore an accumulation of problems for PASOK, against which it would need significant adjustments to its tactics and strategy.
Will it manage to find an antidote? We shall see. It is a big party, it is a historical party, it has significant social roots, it may succeed if it rethinks the whole concept with which it is proceeding. We’re talking about whether it’ll go up in the polls or if it will retain 2nd place because the first seems locked. So let’s not waste time arguing about the polls. They have a lot of work to do…
I said it and I’m sorry. I have no sin…
* This article was published at Liberal.gr
