A frontal personal attack on Kyriakos Mitsotakis has been planned for today by Nikos Androulakis, aiming to damage the prime minister’s image by naming him as the main responsible party for all corruption cases, focusing on the OPEKEPE case files and the wiretapping scandal. PASOK headquarters has long identified that Kyriakos Mitsotakis initially has an advantage over Nikos Androulakis in terms of suitability for prime minister. The leader of the main opposition wants to weaken this image by raising PASOK’s opposition decibel levels within Parliament, something he is already doing outside of it.
Androulakis aims to boost PASOK’s poll numbers – His strategy against Mitsotakis
The PASOK president believes that the prime minister not only knew about the OPEKEPE cases initially and secondarily about the wiretapping, but was also the main inspiration and architect of these major scandals, as he characterizes them. He will obviously add other smaller cases to damage Mitsotakis’ image, such as that of the new Deputy Minister of Agricultural Development, Makarios Lazaridis, a case that appears like a small dot on a huge screen that PASOK is trying to magnify as much as possible to make it appear as a significant problem. The leader of the main opposition realizes this might be his last chance to deliver a good speech in Parliament, where he will have a direct confrontation with the prime minister, in order to boost his own poll numbers while simultaneously raising PASOK’s polling “needle.”
The successive meetings at Charilaou Trikoupi headquarters in recent days had the central goal of strengthening Nikos Androulakis’ opposition arsenal, who will attempt to highlight his differences with Kyriakos Mitsotakis and explain why he considers him the main responsible party for the country’s institutional decline. Moreover, following the decision of the Single-Member Misdemeanor Court, he has already announced his intention to bring a new investigative committee to Parliament on the wiretapping issue, something he may bring to public discussion today during the pre-agenda period. At the same time, he will seek to deconstruct the prime minister’s reformist profile, who has invested heavily in his government’s efforts to tackle the “deep state,” chronic pathologies, and clientelist relationships. The PASOK president will demonstrate that the prime minister was elected with promises of reforms, transparency, and meritocracy, but failed. To achieve this, Androulakis will argue that Mitsotakis remained merely in the reformist narrative, without solutions to everyday problems and without a trace of self-criticism regarding corruption, clientelism, and institutional devaluation.
He will obviously want to cut short the possibility of a third governmental term for Kyriakos Mitsotakis, saying it would “be equivalent to continuing inequalities, weakening institutions, scandals, lack of merit, and opacity,” in order to broadcast some political slogans such as: “The Greek people deserve better and will make political change a reality.” Additionally, he will attempt to disprove the prime minister, whom he accuses of lacking governability in other parties, by unfolding his strategy for governing the country. He will essentially describe some important points from the Movement’s program, seeking to convince that “PASOK has returned to give hope and prospects to citizens.” Nikos Androulakis proposed through Nikitas Kaklamanis to postpone the discussion due to Giorgos Mylonakis’ health condition. Kyriakos Mitsotakis thanked the PASOK president, politely declined, and responded that the discussion will proceed normally.
