Two years have passed since the 2024 European elections and the victory of New Democracy, with a percentage below 30% (28.31%), which significantly changed part of Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ political thinking. The four government changes announced on Monday also reflect this thinking and essentially close this cycle that opened in the summer of 2024 and brought comprehensive sweeping changes.
The 40 changes in Mitsotakis government and the new staffing model
After the European election ballot, 40 changes were made at all levels of government, as a total of 15 new ministers and deputy ministers and 25 new general secretaries (including some who changed posts) took office after two “reshuffles”. The Prime Minister’s choices began from then to present a different strategy by Mr. Mitsotakis, different from the one that characterized his corresponding choices in 2019. In the reshuffle that followed the then European ballot, all without exception new additions to the government had been made through the Parliamentary Group of New Democracy: No extra-parliamentary members, no technocrats. The “reshuffle” of general secretaries that followed had brought to these positions former ND MPs (Savvas Chionidis), former ND politicians (Manos Logothetis), former ND European Parliament candidates (Nikos Papaioannou), former mayors elected with ND support (Dimitris Karnavos), former party officials (Tasos Gaitanis), former ONNED officials (Katerina Patsogianhi) and others.
The Prime Minister’s next choice had to do with the Commission and the Greek Commissioner – and there he chose Apostolos Tzitzikostas, former party MP and for many years Regional Governor of Central Macedonia, with a more politically conservative and more “pure-blood” right-wing profile. From another generation, with different experiences and representations, but with the same ideological-political characteristics was also Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ next choice, that for the Presidency of the Republic. Announcing Kostas Tasoulas for the country’s top office through his televised message, the Prime Minister mentioned among other things that “the President of the Republic must have high prestige, broader acceptance and, of course, experience, knowledge and practical respect for institutions. Broader acceptance, however, does not necessarily mean some proposal beyond the current government majority.” Immediately after came the Prime Minister’s decision to utilize in a top post, that of Parliament Speaker, an MP with long tenure and experience and political “matrix” from the so-called popular right, Nikitas Kaklamanis.
Thus we reach the closing of the two-year period from the European election ballot with six choices from the most “authentic” -if this term is valid- right wing of the ruling party, while at the same time Pavlos Marinakis remains as government spokesman, something deemed necessary by the Prime Minister on the road to elections.
Konstantinos Kyranakis takes the reins of ND’s Political Committee
Konstantinos Kyranakis will be elected tomorrow, Wednesday, as secretary of New Democracy’s Political Committee, to lead the party from this position to the national elections. With a political career that starts from university and DAP-NDFK, progresses to ONNED and continues in ND -as also his successor as deputy minister of Transport, Giorgos Kotsiras-, “a person who comes from the new generation of center-right formation officials and who has been successfully tested as deputy minister in three ministries (Foreign Affairs, Justice and Finance),” as government sources said on Monday.
Dimitris Markopoulos: The choice for the economic staff
Dimitris Markopoulos who takes over Giorgos Kotsiras’ position as deputy minister of National Economy knows the subject, having dealt professionally with economic reporting for years, while he is also an experienced parliamentarian, with very good presence in Parliament representing New Democracy, as the same sources emphasize.
Marilena Soukouli and Tasos Hatzivasiliou in new government posts
Marilena Soukouli, who takes over as deputy minister of Environment and Energy in place of the late Nikos Tagara, has also been involved in politics with New Democracy for years, initially elected as prefectural and subsequently regional councilor in Corinthia and since 2019 as ND MP.
The 44-year-old Serres MP Tasos Hatzivasiliou takes over as deputy minister of Foreign Affairs responsible for European Affairs, “a subject which he knows excellently and in depth,” as the same sources point out, emphasizing that “he also comes from the new generation of ND officials, in recent years, as secretary of International Relations he deals with European politics and maintains strong communication channels with European governments.” The sixth and final choice is expected to be announced tomorrow, Wednesday, concerning the presidency of the competent Parliamentary Committee for Constitutional Revision, with Makis Voridis destined for this post.
