Democratic Alignment

Democratic Alignment (PASOK) MEP Nikos Androulakis, one of nine candidates vying for the leadership of a new Greek center-left political party, delivered a speech in Athens Tuesday. On Monday night, the candidates held their second live televised debate ahead of leadership elections scheduled for Sunday. [Eurokinissi]

To Potami and Democratic Alignment (PASOK) will retain their parliamentary groups after the formation of the new center-left party by the end of the year, according to Stavros Theodorakis, one of the nine candidates aspiring to lead the movement. 

Stavros Theodorakis, leader of the centrist To Potami party, has suggested that he will run for the leadership of Democratic Alignment in elections scheduled for October.

The fact that the Democratic Alignment party - the political reincarnation of PASOK socialists - plans to hold its upcoming leadership contest using an electronic voting system is no doubt good news for Greece's political system, which has come under increasing fire in recent years in the wake of the country's financial crisis.

Potential contenders in the Democratic Alignment leadership election will have to declare their candidacy by September 15, Kathimerini reports, adding that campaigning will last for six weeks.

Democratic Alignment has said that it welcomes the news that Athens Mayor Giorgos Kaminis intends to run against its incumbent leader, Fofi Gennimata, in party leadership elections in October. "Kaminis is welcome to the battle, as is every candidacy that adds to, and doesn't take away from the effort to create a new movement of the center-left," the party said in an announcement.

Democratic Alignment and PASOK leader Fofi Gennimata has called for the creation of a new center-left political movement, whose leader will be elected directly by the people in a vote in October.

One day after she announced that the socialists will hold an emergency congress later this year, PASOK leader Fofi Gennimata on Wednesday met with former prime minister and party chief Costas Simitis.

The centrist To Potami party on Wednesday attacked PASOK leader Fofi Gennimata after it became known that one of its former deputies, Larissa MP Constantinos Bargiotas, was joining the ranks of Democratic Alignment.

Former premier George Papandreou said on Monday he regretted not insisting on a referendum over the Greek bailout before he left office in 2011.

Papandreou was prime minister from 2009 to 2011, when he resigned to make way for a national unity government during the outbreak of the Greek debt crisis.