In a high-risk move, Nikos Androulakis expelled one of his party’s top officials last night, Odysseas Konstantinopoulos, who had harshly criticized the party leadership two days earlier, thus paradoxically opening the discussion about the future of PASOK and setting the agenda for the party congress scheduled in fifteen days.
Former PASOK MP Odysseas Konstantinopoulos, for his part, shortly after the opposition leader’s decision to expel him from the party, stated that “expulsion is the last refuge of a fearful leadership. After 20 years of consistent service to PASOK and being among the few who remained with the party during the difficult years, Mr. Androulakis expelled me because I told the truth: something everyone knows but he refuses to accept.”
When Androulakis decided to expel Konstantinopoulos
Obviously, the PASOK president’s decision was not a spontaneous move. Sources indicate that the opposition leader made this decision immediately after Odysseas Konstantinopoulos’s interview, where the now-former deputy speaker of Parliament said: “Is there someone who believes that a party at 13% (while the other is at 30%) can overturn the situation under these conditions, about a year before the elections? I believe things are very difficult for PASOK, and if serious changes are not made at many levels, I don’t believe the situation can be reversed. We all know this, and any PASOK official you talk to off-camera will tell you what everyone is saying.” In reality, the former PASOK MP challenged Nikos Androulakis’s basic narrative that his party’s goal is to defeat New Democracy, even by a single vote.
The opposition leader decided not to make any hasty decisions as he didn’t want to overshadow his presence at the European Parliament plenary in Strasbourg, or his speech in the Greek Parliament plenary, where the agreement with Chevron and Helleniq for hydrocarbons was discussed. Additionally, other sources report that Nikos Androulakis’s final decision was influenced by the fact that Odysseas Konstantinopoulos appeared to criticize Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez for his decision to oppose Donald Trump, contrary to the European Socialist Party’s decision to support the Spanish Prime Minister.
Reasons for Konstantinopoulos’s expulsion from PASOK
Odysseas Konstantinopoulos’s expulsion has obviously generated much discussion within PASOK, as the Arcadia MP was one of the figures who supported Charis Doukas in the internal party elections. Many are waiting for reactions from top officials to understand how the party congress at the end of the month will unfold. There has been extensive discussion about the reasons why Nikos Androulakis actually took this risk. According to party insiders, the PASOK president proceeded with this move:
- Because he preferred not to go to the congress with the “Odysseas Konstantinopoulos problem.” As PASOK officials noted, an inflammatory speech at the congress would have caused more problems than his expulsion did.
- The second reason obviously has to do with strengthening Nikos Androulakis’s leadership profile just before his party’s congress. In his own way, he sent a message that there is a limit to what he can tolerate from comrades who criticize him.
- The next reason relates to the expansion process itself, since Nikos Androulakis has decided to proceed with this process at any cost. Officials close to the opposition leader note that he has decided to move forward with this process regardless of consequences.
- It should be remembered that Odysseas Konstantinopoulos had strongly opposed this process, saying: “If PASOK were at 20% today, we wouldn’t be discussing Mr. Pelegrinis or Mr. Korakakis. This discussion arises because PASOK failed with the initiatives it undertook during this entire period to respond and strengthen its percentages. This is the central issue we must all address together with honesty and transparency. The expansion we have discussed so far has not delivered the expected results.”
PASOK, in its announcement following Nikos Androulakis’s statement to the Parliament Speaker that Odysseas Konstantinopoulos is outside the parliamentary group, revealed that “Mr. Konstantinopoulos, yesterday, once again chose to give a 20-minute interview without making a single reference to PASOK’s work and parliamentary initiatives, without articulating a single line of criticism against the New Democracy government. He couldn’t find a word to say about the discussion taking place in the European Parliament on the initiative of European Socialists regarding the rule of law and Nikos Androulakis’s vindication in the wiretapping trial following the landmark decision of the Single-Member Misdemeanor Court. He couldn’t find a word to say about the battle PASOK’s Parliamentary Group fought the previous day to highlight the government’s cover-up attempt with the OPEKEPE report. The conscious goal of this interview was to oppose his own party for 20 minutes and try to change the agenda, so that instead of the government being held accountable for its actions, we would be discussing PASOK’s artificial introversion. Moreover, recently, every time he had a public platform, he used it exclusively to undermine PASOK rather than defend and communicate to citizens its positions, program, and political goals. A few days ago, he attacked Spanish Prime Minister P. Sánchez, fully adopting New Democracy’s line with the sole purpose of blurring PASOK’s message and offering services to the government, receiving public congratulations from Mr. Georgiadis. For a long time now, instead of arguing against the government’s economic and social policies, the successive corruption scandals it produces, and the unprecedented devaluation of institutions and the rule of law, Mr. Konstantinopoulos has remained obsessively focused on the back pages of internal party procedures. However, the party base has turned many pages forward and demands that everyone rise to the occasion, fight united against New Democracy, and communicate the Movement’s positions as shaped by the party’s policy sectors. The struggle for political change against a ruthless power system is demanding, daily, and must be fought with all our strength until the day of national elections.”
