PASOK

Sunday's election for PASOK's leadership was a nail-biter up until the early hours of Monday, keeping analysts up well into the night. The race for second place, which saw Athens mayor Haris Doukas narrowly defeat former minister Pavlos Yeroulanos, has set the stage for a runoff against incumbent Nikos Androulakis.

PASOK MP Pavlos Yeroulanos has said that the candidacy of former EU commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou in the election for the new party president cost him his place in Sunday's runoff.

The Greek political system is going through challenging times. The fragmentation, in whatever direction it takes place in the ideological spectrum, can only act as an impediment to the country's political stability and smooth governance.

A lawsuit taken by Grigoris Dimitriadis, the former head of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis' secretariat, against a number of media outlets regarding their reporting on the country's wiretapping scandal has been thrown out of court.

Haris Doukas attributed the responsibility for the absence of a debate ahead of the second round of elections for PASOK this coming Sunday to Nikos Androulakis.

– Hello, where should I start today, from SYRIZA, where passions have flared up again, from PASOK, which if you see a debate, let me know, or from the contacts of Queen Anna D., who saw “the little kids because they asked me to,” meaning Nikos and Haris?

A debate this week between the two winners of the first round of last Sunday's PASOK leadership election, incumbent leader Nikos Androulakis and Athens Mayor Haris Doukas, appears unlikely. 

“Androulakis doesn’t want the debate. After two days of negotiations, which seem to have been superficial from his side, his team announced today that the debate could not take place,” claim Doukas‘ associates.

Can PASOK position itself as a viable alternative to Kyriakos Mitsotakis' New Democracy? This will be the central question in the second round of the socialist party's leadership elections. While incumbent president Nikos Androulakis currently holds the lead, a turnaround by Haris Doukas, the mayor of Athens, is not out of the question.

– Greetings! Just when we were almost done with the PASOK crowd and thought we’d be bored with the government’s dull antics, bam, the SYRIZA people pop up to give us life and fodder for instant commentary. Kasselakis exploded in fury because, as EfSyn (a newspaper aligned with them) reported, some details from his declaration of assets came to light.