Maria Karystianos may attack against Kyriakos Mitsotakis and criticize Alexis Tsipras, but in reality, she has targeted both Nikos Androulakis and PASOK. Her expectation is that in the coming period she will manage to establish herself in third place, permanently displacing the party of Charilaos Trikoupis to fourth. It is characteristic that party officials insist that especially in the provinces PASOK is hemorrhaging support, as dozens of voters and officials from Nikos Androulakis’s party are heading toward Hope for Democracy. At the same time, a key objective of Maria Karystianos’s team is to manage to convince the undecided voters, who are in the gray zone of polls, that Hope for Democracy will provide the solution to their problems.
Read: Maria Karystianos: The qualitative polling data that favors her party
Karystianos: The existing percentage and the difficulty with Tsipras
As polls show approximately 12.5% support appears to be attracted to the new party’s narrative, her associates believe the entire venture is feasible. At the same time, these same people target those who abstain from the electoral process, disillusioned with the political system. “Our goal is to convince them that we have nothing in common with the parties they know until today. If we succeed, then everything is possible,” say party sources close to Karystianos.
These same people don’t hide their desire for Hope for Democracy to manage to position itself in second place, as they initially believed would happen. However, they realize that things in this case are not particularly easy, as Alexis Tsipras’s party appears to be winning impressions and voters significantly in the polls. That’s why Maria Karystianos targets Alexis Tsipras in all her appearances, hoping that this way she will be able to weaken him. It’s characteristic that the president of the new party, commenting on SYRIZA’s presentation, said it was “very glamorous” and relied more on image. “Mr. Tsipras is reheated food – I use Adonis Georgiadis’s phrase about us,” she noted and argued that “Mr. Tsipras’s issue is more about communication than substance.”
She also characterized as “an insult to the institution of democracy and to the right we have to engage in politics” the reference made at Thiseio, during the start of SYRIZA’s presentation, that “we produce more parties than we can consume.” She even ruled out a possible political alliance with the Greek Left Alliance saying: “We could not meet politically with Mr. Tsipras. We talk about the problem with funds and he signed for funds in 2015. He appointed the leadership of Justice, he did things that for us are red lines.”
Searching for identity
However, Maria Karystianos says all this while her party is searching for political identity, as for now Hope for Democracy does not have a clear ideological orientation. Her officials are seeking a new ideological platform to blend the right-wing to far-right, as well as left-wing views that exist within the party, in order to create a program that somewhat expresses a large part of the people who follow her.
This process doesn’t seem easy, since the people who join Maria Karystianos’s party have different ideological perceptions and views. Thus, they are searching for the central idea in the positions that the new political entity should have, so that the programmatic declaration doesn’t lean toward one side or the other.
She herself, trying to dispel the impressions of this substantial void, mentioned that she has been characterized as a “far-right communist.” Her associates, however, for now are content to say that their positions will have a progressive character. Sixteen different groups participate in this process, which process all proposals submitted by party members, with the aim of subsequent consultation. The programmatic positions, when formulated, will be uploaded to the party’s website, so that voting can then take place. At the same time, the morning coffee has been created, where her close associates participate. This includes Maria Gratsia, Thanasis Avgerinos, who has taken over communication issues, retired officer Athanasios Tzouganatos, who is responsible for foreign policy and defense issues, Vasilis Kokotsakis, who is responsible for Crete and generally for the provinces. Also participating are Dimitris Panagiotópoulos and Maria-Christina Baklava. The head of the economic program will be economics professor at the University of California, Fanis Tsoulouchas.
Meanwhile, on June 13, Maria Karystianos begins tours going to Perama and Piraeus. A few days before or after, she will also visit the suburbs of Thessaloniki to talk with her fellow citizens about her party’s positions.
Published in “Sunday Afternoon”.
