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Maria S.Topalova

When he announced preliminary elections, he was called by his opponents “the prime minister that didn’t want to govern.” During the 4-week pre-election campaign, Kostas Karamanlis was enviably energetic and expressed admirable will for victory, which made the same opponents change their minds to “He called himself a warrior and he really is one.”

For five years spent at the head of the Greek state, he had his ups and downs. His government accomplished goals which previous governments never managed to- the privatization of the national air-carrier Olympic, the phone company OTE and the Pirea Port. His economic team, however, failed to restrict the ever-growing public sector and apply strict fiscal discipline, which Greece needed so bad in order to meet the Maastricht criteria for membership in the Eurozone. Vast corruption and scandals accompanied the rule of New Democracy, making people see PASOK as a lifeboat. Some hardly popular measures against high-income citizens disappointed New Democracy’s regular supporters.

In such unfavorable conditions Kostas Karamanlis was forced to announce preliminary parliamentary elections. With the threat to freeze presidential elections in the beginning of the spring, PASOK made Karamanlis make this decision, defined at the very beginning as a “social suicide.” According to the Greek constitution, the president is chosen with a majority of two thirds of votes, meaning New Democracy and PASOK, the two major parties, need to settle on a common candidate. The socialists announce that they would not support the candidate nominated by the governing party unless parliamentary election were held before or immediately after that and this is how today’s elections became a fact.

Besides the new government of the Greece, to some expend today’s elections determine Karamanlis’s political future. After the utter defeat of PASOK over New Democracy, the topic of the day is Karamanlis’s retirement. Or at least the summon of an extraordinary congress. Those acquainted with internal conflicts in New Democracy claim that at least 1/3 of the party members will support Dora Backoyanni- the Minister of Foreign Affairs and daughter of the honorary party chairman Konstantinos Mitsotakis. Another serious candidate to become head of the party is the former health minister Dimitris Avramopoulos.

At the elections night no one can predict Karamanlis’s next step. One thing is for certain- he suffered quite the defeat. Do not, however, underestimate him and write him off- he is a strong warrior and a great politician.