MacroPolis

Less than 18 months since New Democracy, Greece’s ruling centre-right party, won a comfortable victory in the general elections, leaving the two main opposition parties of the left, SYRIZA and PASOK, so far behind that dominance for many years seemed almost a certainty, the country’s politics is in flux again.

Over the last few weeks, PASOK and SYRIZA have held leadership elections, while New Democracy’s leader, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, has become caught up in a public row over government policy with one of his predecessors, ex-PM Antonis Samaras. Mitsotakis recently threw Samaras, a serving MP, out of New Democracy in a move that rocked the party.

All this has happened against a backdrop of continuing public dissatisfaction with the cost of living, the declining popularity of the government and rising support for Greece’s radical right parties. Whereas 1.5 years ago, the country’s political path looked decided, now everything is in doubt.

New Democracy won 40.5 pct of the vote in June 2023, but in the European Parliament elections this June, it gained just over 28 pct. Even though the two results are not directly comparable, this summer’s result was well below the 33 pct Mitsotakis had set as a target for his party. Subsequent opinion polls indicate that backing for the conservatives has fallen below 30 pct, which has prompted doubts about whether they can gain an outright majority at the next elections, due in 2027. Under the current electoral rules, the winning party would probably need in excess of 35 pct to form a government on its own.

There are numerous sources for this dissatisfaction among voters. These include the ongoing challenges posed by inflation (prices have been rising since May 2021), the growing impact of the climate crisis and the state’s limitations in protecting Greeks from fires and flooding, and concerns about the rule of law, especially the independence of the judiciary.

The government has also come under attack from the right wing over social and foreign policy issues. This criticism has also come from within New Democracy’s ranks. Samaras, a figurehead for the nationalist right in the ruling party, became increasingly outspoken after the European Parliament elections. He repeatedly identified Mitsotakis’s decision to pass a same-sex marriage law earlier this year as a mistake, accusing the government of being out of touch with the sensibilities of most Greeks. He was also vehemently opposed to the discussions going on between Athens and Ankara aimed at settling longstanding disputes in the Aegean. A recent newspaper interview in which he suggested that the foreign minister should resign prompted Mitsotakis to send the former PM home instead.

Samaras’s criticism is a particularly sore point for the government because the parties to New Democracy’s right are becoming stronger. At the European Parliament elections in June, ultranationalist Greek Solution, ultraorthodox Niki and nativist Voice of Reason gained a combined total of almost 17 pct. Their numbers have been edging up in the opinion polls carried out since then. This has led some New Democracy officials, apart from Samaras, to believe that the government needs to turn towards the right to win back voters. Donald Trump’s victory in the US Presidential election has strengthened their belief. Mitsotakis insists he will continue to steer a path through the centre.

In fact, Mitsotakis has focussed his attention on PASOK, which has become the main target of his criticism over the last few weeks. The implication of this strategy is that the Prime Minister still believes that the next election will be won in the centre and he sees a recently rejuvenated PASOK as his main competitor for votes.

The European Parliament elections, in which PASOK gained almost 13 pct of the vote, triggered a leadership election in the socialist party. Critics of party president Nikos Androulakis felt that PASOK should have overtaken SYRIZA, which won almost 15 pct, because the leftists were in turmoil over the leadership of businessman-turned-politician Stefanos Kasselakis. His few months as party leader had been erratic and confrontational.

However, after two rounds of voting, Androulakis was comfortably re-elected as leader in October. Even though doubts remain about whether the former MEP has the personal charisma and political vitality to mount a realistic challenge for power, PASOK’s ability to hold a civilised leadership contest - while other parties bickered in the background – has revitalised the social democrats fortunes. Opinion polls now show backing for PASOK edging towards 20 pct, while it has reduced New Democracy’s lead to single digits.

This has prompted speculation about a return for the duopoly of New Democracy and PASOK, which dominated Greek politics for almost four decades from the 1980s onwards. This debate is partly fuelled by SYRIZA slipping to the fringes. The party’s experimentation with the political neophyte Kasselakis proved to be a disaster. Since his shock election last September, there were constant splits and arguments at SYRIZA, culminating in the former banker being ousted as leader and new leadership elections being held.

SYRIZA members opted for a safer choice on November 24^th, when they elected former deputy minister and parliamentary spokesman Sokratis Famellos, a moderate rooted in the party apparatus, as their new president. Famellos faces a huge task – SYRIZA’s support in the opinion polls has slipped to single digits and Kasselakis is launching his own party, Movement for Democracy, with the intention of targeting left-wing, as well as centrist, voters.

These recent developments have created a very fluid political situation as Greece enters a period in which the challenges it faces are set to become tougher. Economic growth is expected to slow over the coming years as the funds from the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) dry up, the housing crisis is set to intensify, overtourism is likely to become a greater drain on resources and source of friction, while global events could make the energy and migration situations more complicated. On top of this, Greece has already experienced over the last few years some of the worst natural disasters in its history, and the climate crisis is expected to bring more catastrophe.

There is pressure on the country’s decision makers to avoid being sucked into the political maelstrom that has been developing over the last few months. Perhaps their biggest challenge is to remain focussed on the very real and very pressing problems faced by the country and its citizens rather to pay attention only to the political field, which has suddenly become a lot more competitive than anyone expected.