European elections: last chance for opposition parties to limit the political dominance of K. Mitsotakis

2024 is certainly an interesting year from a political point of view, as it is the year of the European elections, it will be the last chance for opposition parties (right or left) to gain a serious share and “come out” in the near future.

Especially it concerns right-wing parties: if they do not show, in a “free” voting process, that they can shape political events, they will simply “disappear” because they will prove that their usefulness is “finite”, if not meaningless.

European elections are the biggest opportunity for a political formation to “collect” from citizens the dissatisfaction they feel towards the government (and there are many complaints about this particular government), from a safe side. Safe not only for voters (after all, they do not decide to govern the country in order to choose… the least worst, according to the timeless concept), but also for parties.

Because no matter how large a percentage they receive, they do not take on any responsibility (except for representing the country well in Brussels, because the recent cases of E. Kiley, M. Spirakis and A. Georgoulis have created a problem for the image of the state) and can gain ” glasses” in the public consciousness are completely inexpensive.

Such a “golden” opportunity will present itself to them in June 2024. After all, if we talk about parties to the right of the ND, then in the recent national elections (second) “Greek Solution”, “NIKI” and “Spartans” collected 14% (three together).

Anything less than 20% as an overall achievement in this summer’s elections will be a big failure. Why exactly 20%? Because it is this percentage that shows that they have “momentum”, and anything that does not have momentum will inevitably shrink. If they do not pass, then KKE will become the fourth party and consolidate in this position.

New Democracy appears to be holding on to the percentage it had in the 2023 parliamentary elections in all polls, but Maximou is looking at qualitative data that could hurt Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ party. Because they know that yes, they are the first party in society, but society is dissatisfied with them, which means they choose them because so far… they don’t see anyone else.

According to all surveys, the problem of punctuality appears to be the most serious problem plaguing society, as a large proportion of citizens struggle to make ends meet, as official figures show: 80% of Greeks cannot pay their bills.

At the same time, another issue that citizens rate very highly is security, according to most surveys. On the street, most citizens do not know whether they will return home safe and sound, even if they go out for… coffee. The police report is updated daily with crimes that were previously considered “unlikely” to be committed and completely “abnormal”.

In the big picture, the public is dissatisfied with the government’s policies, which is why there is now heated debate about the possibility of expressing political discontent in the European elections. This discussion is also related to the result of the second round of local elections. Nobody expected it, but it finally came to fruition, resulting in the election of Haris Doukas as mayor of Athens, while in the first round he received only 14%! This means that there is a “propensity to change.”

All this has caused concern in Maxima, since the opposition parties (and especially SYRIZA) do not look capable of claiming large percentages, but New Democracy will have no difficulty in springing a surprise in the European elections if it falls victim to the “free vote”.

For this reason, the responsibility of opposition parties is very high. They will have no excuse if they fail to produce much better electoral performance than they have, given that there is fertile ground for this.

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