In the New Republic, Synods have never been a boring party obligation. They have always been the mirror of the party.
With ambitions, camps, fierce disagreements, historic quotes and moves that changed the internal balance. And so it arrives today at its 16th Congress, from 15 to 17 May, with the slogan “Together for the Greece of 2030″ and with plenty of discussion already going on around presentations, absences and messages.
The truth is that the New Democracy has never been a party of silent discipline. From the very first congress, in 1979 in Halkidiki, it was clear that there were cadres within the party who wanted to be heard. The famous “Volvi Movement” of youths from United Nations Movement was asking the Ethnarch for less party leadership and more internal processes. By the standards of the time it was considered almost revolutionary.
A few years later came the first big break. In 1986, the New Democracy went to its congress having already lost Kostis Stephanopoulos, who had founded the Democratic National Alliance after his conflict with Constantine Mitsotakis. The atmosphere was heavy, the wells were giving and taking, but the party did not dissolve. It moved on.
The same thing happened in 1994. The departure of Anthony Samaras and the creation of Political Spring had opened a deep wound. Yet the party chose to look forward. Three years later, at the dramatic 1997 Congress, last-minute alliances and the famous “captains” brought Kostas Karamanlis to the leadership, in an internal party upheaval that is still being debated.
And as if all this were not enough, in 2001 another powerful political episode was written. Giorgos Souflias returned to the Southwest after being expelled by Kostas Karamanlis in 1998, a few months after his defeat in the internal party elections. The historic phrase “welcome home” was not just a catchphrase. It was an admission that even those who clashed harshly with it fit into the great centre-right party.
Even in 2010, when Dora Bakoyannis was absent from the Congress after being expelled for voting for the first Memorandum, the New Democracy party continued to move forward under conditions of unprecedented political pressure. Disagreements existed, tensions rose, but no one doubted that the party had to stay upright to keep the country standing.
This is perhaps the real message of this year’s congress. In New Democracy, differing opinions have never been news. It would be news if they did not exist. But the party has historically managed to overcome personal distances when the country’s big political stakes were on the table. When the national interest was on the table.
Because at the end of the day, especially in the face of the battles ahead and the goal of Greece 2030, politics does not remember those who constantly stand against it. It remembers those who are present when history is being written.
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