ND

The credibility of the Parliament inquiry committee set up to investigate the Tempe train collision in central Greece last February, which cost the lives of 57 people, is being eroded by the acrimonious exchanges between the government and the opposition, even before key witnesses are examined.

New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis reiterated on Wednesday his pledge to include more women in his cabinet if he is re-elected in the June 25 election. "I have pledged that we will have many more women in the next cabinet," the ND president said.

The political dispute between the government and the official opposition is shaping up as a clash between action and identity, between management and accusations, between reality and fairy tales. Common to both sides are their cynicism and the hyperbole with which they attack each other.

Now that George Papandreou is returning to the central political scene, the winner of the 2009 elections with a percentage that would be envied by his political opponents (PASOK 43.92% and 160 seats, second party ND with 33.47% and 91 seats), inevitably our mind goes back to that time and the bleak years of the memoranda that followed.

His party ND distanced itself from him

New Democracy leads SYRIZA by between 7.8 and 8.2 percentage points - about one percentage point less than in the 26 May European Parliament election - in a new poll conducted by the Pulse polling company and presented tonight on SKAI television's evening newscast.

Nikos Tahiaos, the failed mayoral candidate in Thessaloniki in the local elections of May 26-June 2, will be a Parliamentary candidate for New Democracy in the multi-seat Thessaloniki A constituency in the July 7 election.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras insists on challenging opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis to a TV debate. He believes he comes across better, as does everyone in SYRIZA and possibly even most people in New Democracy. I admit that I thought so too, from 2016, when Mitsotakis was elected president of ND, until now.

Center-right opposition New Democracy swept to victory in the second round of municipal and regional elections on Sunday with conservative-backed candidates clinching the capital's mayorship and virtually all Greek regions.

Addressing his shadow ministers in a meeting on Monday following New Democracy's victory in European Parliament elections, Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Greeks had backed ND due to its "different ethos and style" as well as its proposed economic program.