North Dakota

Fierce political controversy was sparked yesterday by the revelation of the unauthorized and illegal pool built by the President of SYRIZA Progressive Alliance, Stefanos Kasselakis, in Spetses, despite

Independent MP since yesterday afternoon is Chania MP Pavlos Polakis, as his verbal attack on a staff member of Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis resulted in his expulsion from the SYRIZA Parliamentary Group, dramatically changing the agenda and dynamics within the main opposition.

The Timeline of the Expulsion

With an increased majority, the ruling party ND (New Democracy) and PASOK-KINAL voted for the Ministry of Finance and National Economy’s bill “Ratification of the 18.7.2024 Merger and Investment Agreement between the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund and the limited liability company THRIVEST HOLDING LTD” for the merger of Attica Bank with Pancreta Bank in the plenary session.

A clear message in all directions, to ministers, MPs and executives of the New Democracy, was the impeachment of Lefteris Avgenakis by decision of Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Mr. Avgenakis was the first secretary of Mr. Mitsotakis since he took over the reins of ND in 2016, while for 5 consecutive years, until the recent reshuffle, he held ministerial positions.

Now that there is no longer the specter of a return of leftist SYRIZA and its former leader Alexis Tsipras to power, ruling New Democracy could easily fall back to being its "good old" self. It is a party with a long tradition of interparty backstabbing and clashes between its prominent members. Oftentimes, it is only the first names of the main protagonists of such clashes that change.

Joint Intervention by Former Prime Ministers Samaras and Karamanlis Sparks Intra-Party Dynamics – Maximos Stance

Mayor of Athens Haris Doukas hinted that he plans to run for the leadership of the Socialist PASOK party in a social media post on Thursday. 

In a Facebook post Doukas stated that PASOK can defeat the ruling New Democracy party, just as he did in the mayoral election in Athens, while repeating the phrase "let's go."

Haris Doukas has responded to Manolis Christodoulakis’ call for cooperation with enthusiasm, expressing readiness to join forces immediately. In his post today, the Mayor of Athens affirmed their partnership, aiming to revive hope and unify efforts against ND, much like they successfully did in Athens.

With a few exceptions, Greeks chose people they knew to represent the country in the European Parliament on Sunday. They voted chiefly for existing MEPs, television presenters and career politicians. So who are the 15 men and six women headed to Strasbourg?

Ruling New Democracy failed to pass the 33% bar that it had set as its target in Sunday's European elections, registering a final percentage of 27.8%, with government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis referring to a "Pyrrhic victory."