Nikos Androulakis

Nikos Androulakis, the leader of PASOK, which came third in the May 21 elections, addressed the party's central political committee and new parliamentary group on Sunday. The meeting was attended by candidates and PASOK officials from all parts of Greece.

Haris Kastanidis, a lawmaker with socialist PASOK, expressed anger at party leader Nikos Androulakis' decision - after standing as a candidate in Thessaloniki, Iraklio on Crete (where he was born) and the Southern Electoral District of Athens in the May 21 election - to keep his seat in the 1st Constituency of Thessaloniki.

PASOK leader Nikos Androulakis emphasized again on Thursday that the party is not interested in forming a coalition with ruling New Democracy, "even if two or three seats are needed to form a government." 

A caretaker government led by a judge and with non-politicians at the crucial posts will be sworn in Thursday.

Dora Antoniou, Kathimerini's political editor, joins Thanos Davelis to break down what went wrong for SYRIZA and Alexis Tsipras in Sunday's elections, what this defeat means for the party looking ahead, and whether this is now PASOK and Nikos Androulakis' big chance to reclaim the center-left. 

Nikos Androulakis, the socialist PASOK leader, has turned down the third exploratory mandate to form a government in a meeting with President Katerina Sakellaropoulou.

"I'm turning down the mandate I received, as there are no opportunities for government convergences on the basis of policy agreements," he said after the meeting.

Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou will receive the leader of PASOK-Movement for Change Nikos Androulakis on Tuesday at 6.30 p.m. on Tuesday to present him with the third exploratory mandate to form a government, according to article 37 of the Greek Constitution.

With New Democracy set to comfortably win an outright majority in the second election, which will probably take place on June 25, a relentless political battle has already begun for the dominance of the center-left of the political spectrum. 

With PASOK's ratings increasing by more than 40% compared to 2019, there is a clear possibility now it could be catapulted back to being the main opposition party.

The sense of optimism was conveyed by its leader Nikos Androulakis, who issued an invitation "to every democrat, every progressive Greek, to fight together on this new promising course."

A study by the Reuters Institute and the University of Oxford published last year showed that 71% of the public in Greece gets its information from social media, and 53% of that number from Facebook in particular.