How much reformist estrus can the government withstand? Almost 16 months after the parliamentary elections of June 2023 and the surprising result of the European elections, Megaros Maximos are at a difficult crossroads, in which no choice is easy or self-evident. Filling the TIF basket highlighted the wider problem.
Will rigid insistence on reforms or softening the “corners” bring the government out into the open for the next three years?
Those unmoved by the reforms
The prime minister’s staff is divided. On one side are those who argue that the government has a big project to present, which has not been properly highlighted in all its aspects, and that if this happens, the reforms are linked together and the picture grows, the citizens will understand and appreciate it.
According to this analysis, the polling and other difficulties faced by the government are temporary and they just need a little more calmness, persistence and acceleration of the reforms based on the program presented by the ND before the elections. This way of thinking represents them Aki Scherzo and Alexis Pateliswith Kyriakos Mitsotakis not to be far from this logic.
Also, the finance minister Kostis Hatzidakis he remains a staunch advocate of reform and resists proposals that would blur the reformist stigma for the sake of pandering to voters. Accepts only minor corrective interventions.
Those who take a softer stance
On the other side, the Makis Voridis, Pavlos Marinakis and George Mylonakis they consider that certain reforms, which provoked parts of the electoral base of the ND or even society, could be better weighed during the second term, made more proportional and fairer. They are not in favor of “softening” them, but believe that a “softening” would give the citizens time to better understand the government’s goals and the government a chance to reconnect with the social current of the first term of government.
At this stage they feel that on some issues, such as taxation of the self-employed, the NHS, same-sex marriage, a lot of tension and suspicion has built up which does not help, especially when there is no opposition to defuse the climate politically.
According to sources from the Maximos Palace, the Prime Minister does not close his ears and in this analysis, he discusses everything, but he still has not settled on his strategy. Nor is it expected to come to an end before the landscape in SYRIZA and PASOK is formed and it is seen whether a pole with the potential to claim power can be formed in the space of the Center-Left.
The voters are also waiting, as can be seen from the opinion polls, keeping the political system up and down in the correlation of forces of the European elections, with the weakest link in this phase being SYRIZA.
The background with Patelis and Dendias
The different approaches of the Prime Minister’s associates, they say, do not reflect bad relations between them, but the anxiety of both sides for the balanced mix of reforms that will maintain the government’s ties with society. That’s why they spread a veil of protection for Al. Patelis, for whom Athens has been buzzing that his resignation or ostracism from the Maximos Palace is imminent, a development that would not displease a large part of the ND Parliamentary Group at all.
They don’t do the same for him Nikos Dendiasfor which the scenario of his move to the Presidency of the Republic was widely circulated. “We are not saying that there is a Dendia scenario, we are not saying that it does not exist” comments an associate of the Prime Minister. The cover-up does not concern the Minister of National Defense, but the reluctance, they say, of Mr. Mitsotakis to open this discussion at the given time, because he considers it discrediting to the current President Katerina Sakellaropoulouwith whom he has built a good relationship.
In any case, this is a difficult discussion, which the Prime Minister is pushing towards the end of the year or early 2025, although he is accepting suggestions for various figures, political and otherwise. If, however, he chooses a President from the Right, he will break the tradition of recent years for a person from the opposite faction or of wider acceptance, which could be a balancing factor in the prescribed difficult period both internally and in the European and Greek-Turkish.
Income support measures
The government’s autumn wave of counterattacks is about boosting citizens’ income in various ways, whether it’s taxation, housing or benefits. On Thursday the Prime Minister hastened to announce himself an additional allowance for doctors who choose to serve in troubled or barren areas, as proof of concern for the NHS.
In a torturous everyday life, with the state unable to meet the invested expectations of the citizens which are decreasing, are measures here and there enough, which are often perceived as patches even by those they benefit? Or without a clear three-year strategy, or even a third term, will K. Mitsotakis find himself in the position of Amphitryon (“Heracles the Raging”) and remain an “echo of language”, deprived of his former power?
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