The die was cast. Everything shows that the meeting of the Central Committee of the PASOK, scheduled for September 15, will turn into a permanent conference that will be called upon to decide on the fate of Haris Doukas. The delegates will decide if the statute should be changed in order to overcome the impasse that exists with the candidacy of the mayor of Athens which is currently in the air.
What is the standing conference?
The permanent conference has all the powers of a regular conference. All but one. He cannot choose instruments. But he can change the statute and provide a solution to the impasse that has been created since the filing of the candidacy of the Mayor of Athens. In such a permanent congress, delegates who attended the last regular party congress will be invited to participate. They will decide on the developments in PaSoK which will be stormy in the next period.
The problem and the questions
Haris Doukas has the signatures, and in the opinion polls he appears to claim the leadership of PaSoK. But there is one big issue.
Article 36 specifically states that “those members of the body who hold, by appointment or election, a salaried position of a political nature in the state or in the wider public sector and self-government, cannot be candidates for one-person bodies”
This petition effectively prohibits the Mayor of Athens from claiming the position of the president of the Greek National Association of Greek Citizens of Greece and has been in effect since 2008. Specifically, it first appeared in 2005, but three years later the provision concerning local self-government was added.
Throughout this story there is a great background but also questions concerning all parties involved. And Mr. Doukas, but also those who exert unbearable pressure on the leadership of Harilaou Trikoupis, wanting to force Mr. Doukas either not to be a candidate or, in order to avoid irreconcilability, to resign from the position of mayor.
There are the questions concerning Mr. Doukas. If he or his associates knew the interpretation of Article 36 of the statute. He couldn’t have known. So why did he want to run for office with this provision in effect? Didn’t he know this whole story would cause trouble? And isn’t it paradoxical that a leadership contender does not align with the party’s charter, its constitution?
There are also the questions concerning the guardians of the statute which in many other cases has become rubber. It was changed in an institutional way but to accommodate photographic provisions, such as the last one, which allowed the party secretary to also be a candidate for MEP. Why so much reverence and so much pressure now? Why was the issue not raised when Mr. Doukas submitted his candidacy and is it going to be resolved, as resolved, a month before the elections?
There are voices that emphasize that the solution must be provided by Haris Doukas himself by resigning from one of the two positions. Or that of the mayor of Athens or that of the candidate for the president of PaSoK. And that the statute does not exist to be changed but to be respected. They even recall the case of Christos Papoutsis, who was excluded from the process of electing a leader after the resignation of Giorgos Papandreou, because he failed to collect the signatures required by the statute.
Other voices argue that a solution should be given by changing the statute. The possibility that one of the favorites in the process is not a candidate can also be interpreted as an attempt to “get out of the way”. Not for reasons of statute, but for reasons of election result. In the logic that to rule out the possibility of Mr. Doukas being the next president of PaSoK, it is enough that he is not a candidate.
Why are we going to permanent conference on September 15?
According to the residents of the green Jerusalem of Harilaou Trikoupi, in the past period there were consultations on three specific proposals that would get the party out of the impasse it has found. In PaSoK, everyone emphasizes that Haris Doukas should be a candidate, but also respecting the statute.
One solution could be the interpretation of EDEKAP on the specific article. But this proposal was rejected, as EDEKAP can be exposed in a second time, if there is a dispute or some future litigation. Also, according to secure information that BIMA has at its disposal, there are already reactions to the Duke candidacy that have reached this body. Reactions from grassroots officials, but also from fellow candidates of Mr. Doukas.
So the matter was transferred to the Central Committee. Not even K.E. however, it is competent to amend the statute. It can only validate nominations. Validation of nominations can only be by acclamation. If this happens, then all the effort that the candidates made to collect signatures in the previous period will go to waste. At the same time, if the body votes by acclamation, there is a risk that other candidates will appear out of nowhere, mainly persons who do not meet the requirements for the position of party president.
So everything shows that in the next 24 hours, the members of the previous regular conference are expected to be called to a permanent conference, to decide whether or not to change the statute, specifically article 36.
A similar move was made in 2004. It was the time period when George Papandreou took a ring of succession from Costas Simitis and wanted to be elected from the base of the faction and not through congressional procedures. He then proceeded to change the statute and 1,000,000 citizens voted for him.
In addition, reservations have been expressed that if Haris Doukas is elected president, without first having resolved the issue with the statute, then there is a risk that there will be other important legal issues. Issues concerning the representation of the president of the PASOK with legal entities.
Reactions
The first reports of this problem were made at the beginning of July, with the president of PaSoK, Nikos Androulakis, repeatedly emphasizing that he wants everyone to be a candidate. In one of his public statements, specifically on July 10 on the “Society Hour Mega” show, he characteristically stated that “I am not going to raise any issue for the Duke candidacy. When I was informed by the competent committee, EDEKAP, I said that it must be overcome in an institutional way and that we quickly go through our procedures, talk politically.”
Haris Doukas, regarding his position on the problem with the irreconcilable that arose with his candidacy, had stated that “I submitted my candidacy to the Central Committee in the presence of the president. Until now, obstacles of this type were put up by the ND. through the government representative, Mr. Voridis, Mr. Pleuris, Mr. Velopoulos, Mr. Polakis. There is someone from PaSoK who poses such an obstacle. I submitted my candidacy, it was accepted, we are moving forward”.
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