The 16th Regular Congress of New Democracy belongs to the past and the next one will take place at the earliest in a year and a half from today. Kyriakos Mitsotakis had announced that this was the last one before the next national elections, giving it a character of unity and mobilization ahead of the ballot box. Political heirs, as we have learned to call them, did not emerge from the Congress, nor did anyone expect such a thing.
The five who “colored” New Democracy’s 16th congress
Less than a year before the national elections, moreover, with N.D. consistently maintaining first place with a double-digit lead over the second party in all polls, it would be very difficult for anyone to attempt to craft such a profile for themselves.
However, five figures stood out at the Congress both for what they said in their speeches and because they had active involvement in the process of electing the new Political Committee and managed to get several people from their sphere of influence elected.
Kostis Hatzidakis
“We serve something greater” Vice President of the governing party and the government and one of two who have served as ministers in the last three N.D. governments (Karamanlis, Samaras, Mitsotakis). First in votes in the Northern Athens Sector in the last elections, facing stronger competition in the next ones. He began his political career forty years ago, as secretary of the student faction DAP-NDFKC at the time. In his speech at the Congress he referred by name to all former N.D. presidents and praised their work, while also giving his personal political stance, saying that “it is this course of our faction that imposes measure, ethics, seriousness and responsibility on us, without ever forgetting that we serve something greater than ourselves.”
Adonis Georgiadis
“Let them call me conservative” The other vice president of N.D. and Minister of Health. In the ranks of the governing party for almost a decade and a half now, he aims for first place in votes in the Northern Sector, where he had taken second place on the N.D. ballot. “Yes, they call us conservatives. And I personally have no objection to being called conservative,” he said at the Congress last Saturday, giving his ideological stance. However, he also positioned himself in contrast to certain other governmental and party officials, noting the following: “I know that sometimes in our faction there are also these ‘comme il faut’ views. Don’t say it, don’t let a word too many slip out, don’t show that we might not have complete bourgeois politeness.”
Nikos Dendias
“For an equally great victory” The other minister who was a member of the Karamanlis, Samaras and Mitsotakis governments. The intervention of the National Defense Minister on Saturday afternoon contained several indirect barbs, such as the following: “New Democracy was not created as a professional power mechanism. It is not composed of coalitions of interests. It does not have the tenure of power in its constitutional DNA,” but also regarding the ’24 elections: “The European elections sounded like a warning bell. We lost about 55% of our electoral strength.” However, closing his speech, he called for mobilization “for a victory corresponding to Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s two electoral triumphs, in ’19 and ’23,” as he emphasized. In the last national elections, Mr. Dendias was elected first in votes in the country’s largest electoral district, the Southern Athens Sector, a position he is expected to maintain in the next elections.
Pavlos Marinakis
“We dialogue with the middle class” The government spokesman and deputy minister to the prime minister has the richest party background, having served as president of ONNED and secretary of N.D. He chose at the Congress to refer more analytically to what N.D. has achieved in the last almost seven years in government, dedicating considerable time to governmental accomplishments. Through his speech he also set three priorities, saying that New Democracy “in Greece of 2030 must identify with the needs of every family,” that it is “the faction that spoke and must continue to dialogue with the middle class” and that “it must embrace the new generation, the young people.” In the upcoming elections he seeks election to Parliament for the first time, through the difficult and competitive Northern Athens Sector, where he runs with significant aspirations.
Kyriakos Pierrakakis
“The state should be smart” His election to the presidency of the Eurogroup last December has given him greater prestige and political influence, while at the same time he continues to be actively involved in party affairs, as was evident in the process of electing new members of the Political Committee. In the next elections he wants to repeat his first place in votes in Athens A’. At the N.D. Congress, the political courtesies he exchanged with Adonis Georgiadis in their speeches did not go unnoticed. He himself put clear political and ideological content in his statement, emphasizing among other things the following: “We don’t believe in the old dilemmas of the Post-Transition period: ‘state or market?’ […] We want an open and competitive market, but also a state that is smart. That intervenes strategically where the future of a country is decided.”
Published in Parapolitika
