The clash triggered by Dimitris Kairidis against Haris Doukas — following the New Democracy parliamentary spokesperson’s scathing personal attack on the Mayor of Athens — is escalating into a full-blown political confrontation. Kostas Zachariadis and Elena Akrita have rallied to Doukas’s side, denouncing what they describe as a personal attack and demanding that Kairidis’s remarks be condemned. Both Akrita and Zachariadis fired back with sharp social media posts after Kairidis called Haris Doukas a “failure,” “political marginal,” and “a nobody.” The SYRIZA Member of Parliament and the head of the “Open City” municipal group in Athens rejected any notion of treating both sides as equally at fault, describing Kairidis’s language as toxic, offensive, and anti-democratic.
Zachariadis: A lack of democratic ethos and extreme arrogance
Kostas Zachariadis described Dimitris Kairidis’s televised remarks about the Mayor of Athens as “unacceptable,” arguing that they reveal “a lack of democratic ethos and extreme arrogance.”
“New Democracy needs to understand that in elections, you can lose. Only authoritarian regimes never lose,” he said pointedly.
The head of the “Open City” municipal group and former SYRIZA spokesperson called on New Democracy to condemn “the extremism, the toxic and anti-democratic rhetoric,” while also bringing former Athens Mayor Kostas Bakoyannis into the picture — noting that he, too, should speak up, given that he “lost to a ‘nobody,’ according to his fellow traveller Mr. Kairidis.”
Zachariadis also called for intervention from the Speaker of the Greek Parliament, Nikitas Kaklamanis. He stated that Kaklamanis “must call Mr. Kairidis in and, for starters, issue the necessary formal reprimand in accordance with Parliamentary Rules of Procedure.”
Akrita: No false equivalence here
Elena Akrita struck an even sharper tone, pushing back against any framing of the dispute as a mutual “brawl” or “clash” between the Mayor of Athens and the New Democracy parliamentary spokesperson. “This is not a ‘Doukas–Kairidis brawl’ or a ‘Doukas–Kairidis clash.’ No false equivalence here. We’re not sinking to that level,” she wrote.
The SYRIZA MP noted that Dimitris Kairidis, “without any provocation,” called Haris Doukas “a failure, a political nobody, and a marginal figure.” “That is how he speaks. Exactly like that — and nobody stops him,” she said, adding that she follows his conduct in Parliament “to the extent that I can stomach his sardonic sneer, his offensive remarks, and his sneering rhetoric from the gutter.”
Elena Akrita called it “inconceivable” that a political opponent could be dismissed as “a nobody” and “a marginal figure,” concluding: “I stand with Haris Doukas, against vulgarity and verbal abuse. That is non-negotiable.”
The timeline of the Kairidis–Doukas clash
The confrontation began on the morning of Monday, June 22, 2026, when Dimitris Kairidis, speaking on ANT1 television, turned his attention to the road ahead to elections and the political balance of power within the opposition, setting his sights on PASOK and Haris Doukas. The New Democracy parliamentary spokesperson argued that public debate should not be consumed by opinion polls, speculation surrounding the Greek Police (ELAS) and SYRIZA, or — in his own words — “the nonsense surrounding PASOK.”
He then launched a personal attack on the Mayor of Athens, claiming that PASOK had allowed “a failed Athens Mayor” to drag it “toward destruction.” He added that instead of focusing on cleanliness and the state of Athens city centre, Doukas “plays politics.”
Escalating his attack further, Kairidis branded the Mayor of Athens a “political marginal” and “a nobody,” asserting that he “was elected by chance through a set of circumstances and will not be re-elected.”
The Mayor of Athens fires back
Haris Doukas responded via Facebook, accusing Dimitris Kairidis of acting “on orders from above.” He linked the personal attack to his political disagreements with New Democracy, noting that “those of us who disagree with them politically are branded ‘failures,’ ‘marginals,’ and ‘nobodies.'”
In particularly sharp language, the Mayor of Athens spoke of “the fascisation of political life by the government’s self-styled ‘elite,'” arguing that the attack on him crosses the boundaries of legitimate political debate.
Responding to criticism over the state of the city, Haris Doukas said that Athens “has put behind it the troubled saga of the Grand Promenade and the ad hoc interventions on Vasilissis Olgas Avenue” and is now “turning a new page.”
Closing his post with a pointed jab over the Zappeion, he wrote: “You tore down the 1,000-seat amphitheatre at the Zappeion. Who is paying for that?” — concluding that “this is exactly why they need to become a thing of the past, and fast.”
