Athens Mayor Haris Doukas expressed his concerns about PASOK’s trajectory during the Political Secretariat meeting of KOES. The Athens mayor painted a grim picture of the situation in PASOK, simultaneously calling for a policy change and emphasizing “our strategy has failed so far – the goal of first place is moving away.”
“I worry about our party. I worry about PASOK’s course and about the possibility of achieving the goals we have set. And I want us to be honest among ourselves, comrades. Our strategy has failed so far. The goal of first place is moving away,” emphasized Mr. Doukas.
Read: Haris Doukas: Resolution at congress for no post-electoral cooperation with New Democracy
He also requested, among other things, a resolution against cooperation with New Democracy: “Our Congress must be redemptive. The question before us is clear: Are we in favor of progressive governance with PASOK as protagonist? We must answer clearly and without ‘yes but’. However, there is another very big danger. The clear decision for the big NO to any scenario of co-governance with New Democracy could degenerate into a simple ‘bullet point’ in some part of a political declaration.”
PASOK: Haris Doukas’s statement
Comrades,
I won’t hide that I’m worried. Political developments in our homeland are taking place under conditions of unprecedented international uncertainty, reinforced by the violation of international law rules by President Trump’s choices.
European leadership is constantly following developments belatedly and awkwardly, struggling to stand tall, and European Socialists, with very few exceptions, are unable to formulate a clear progressive response as a bulwark against the Trump storm.
Within these catastrophic international changes, our country and people are experiencing the negative consequences of the opaque, callous and arrogant policy of the New Democracy Government, leading to political, economic and social dead ends. In Mr. Mitsotakis’s so-called operational state, corruption, institutional degradation, indifference to citizens’ problems (e.g. high prices), and serving big economic interests dominate.
An explosive environment of insecurity is being created for the country and the Greek family, which must not lead to a rise in populism and the far right, as is happening with similar phenomena in other European countries.
And I don’t just worry about the country’s course, which unfortunately is in the hands of a very dangerous government. I also worry about our party. I worry about PASOK’s course and about the possibility of achieving the goals we have set. And I want us to be honest among ourselves, comrades. Our strategy has failed so far. The goal of first place is moving away. That’s why I insist on the necessity of making important collective decisions before we face an irreversible situation.
Our Congress must be redemptive. The question before us is clear: Are we in favor of progressive governance with PASOK as protagonist? We must answer clearly and without “yes but”. The “YES” to Progressive Governance that the Congress is called to vote for is nothing but confirmation of PASOK’s historical identity and character from its genesis until today. The people expect to hear clear directions and will react to evasions.
However, there is another very big danger. The clear decision for the big NO to any scenario of co-governance with New Democracy could degenerate into a simple “bullet point” in another section of a political declaration. We want a separate decision to be extremely binding for any scenario we find before us. This must be our central political strategy.
The yes to progressive governance therefore brings 4 central issues:
-The first I have already mentioned. The clear and distinct rejection of governmental cooperation with New Democracy. These cooperation issues are matters of strategic character and must be placed pre-electorally before Greek society, so everyone knows our commitments. And still as a minimum threshold for regaining trust and credibility, the lack of which the political system suffers from. There is concern that if there is no congress commitment pre-electorally, there can be no guarantee post-electorally for “co-governance” scenarios with New Democracy.
Much more so when it was recently publicly supported that the decision doesn’t need to be voted on, because the congress cannot and does not bind pre-electorally what can happen post-electorally. We thus reach a questioning of the congress itself in advance. We paid for this very dearly in the past.
-Yes to progressive governance also means something else.
We must start now exploring the possibility of forming an alternative progressive governance for the country with PASOK as protagonist. Without delays. Without waiting for our congress. From now on, programmatic dialogue with other progressive forces and all those who agree with our basic principles should begin. Without exclusions. Without pleading. With our gaze turned to convergences in society. Everything at the base.
-And for this reason, I come to the third point:
We strengthen Democracy and participation in our party. We give PASOK members the opportunity to participate in making important decisions. We give our base a voice after we decide distinctly and clearly our central strategy. Our members decide on major issues in which PASOK can have a decisive and leading role. The party base will have the opportunity to decide on crucial issues that PASOK must include in its proposals for Constitutional Revision and for important changes and reforms that must proceed in the country. Additionally, members can choose, alongside the Movement’s Ballot Committee, their PASOK parliamentary candidates through primary elections, as provided by the constitution that Nikos Androulakis introduced and was voted on at our previous Congress.
I emphasize that political participation, transparency and intra-party democracy are not secondary issues, but prerequisites for credibility, especially during this period with the dimension that phenomena of questioning have taken against the compartmentalization of mechanisms and the opacity of political parties.
-Our Congress must be deeply democratic. Far from logics of expediency and organizational control. With strict adherence to the Constitution regarding who participates in the Congress (article 22). With open registries for those who want to become members and vote in electing delegates. Also, I want to point out something. Please, let’s not play tricks with algorithms. I can’t imagine Athens appearing with fewer delegates than some prefecture in Crete.
We safeguard as the apple of our eye PASOK’s ethos, values and principles. We are open to welcoming political figures from other spaces who embrace our program. However, we set only one precondition. A prerequisite for those who wish to join PASOK and proceed equally with us for political change is, for those who hold a parliamentary seat, to surrender it to the party they were elected from. We are not all the same.
These 4 points are the basis of our strategy. Without them, everything else risks being transformed into simple management.
In any case, I want to register my disagreement with our course so far. And to propose that there be a decision draft today for changing strategy, in a new victorious direction.
