ND’s strategy against PASOK: Divide and conquer

Recent polls concur that the socialist PASOK, fresh from a leadership election, is approaching 20% of voting intentions, while the main opposition SYRIZA is hitting new lows ahead of its own contest.

The government feels that its strategy to call PASOK's bluff on its reformist bona fides in Parliament by proposing legislation will work.

The conservatives want to spotlight the party's dual nature, reformist and left-populist, in order to retain the crucial block of centrists that have backed Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, rather than his New Democracy party.

"Even if they can keep half of them, it'll be job done," a veteran pollster says.

Priority issues include administrative reform, public health, family policy, education and migration.