The call to re-unite the rightest parties might turn out to be a boomerang for ND party leader Antonis Samaras and just might also turn out to be the third break-up the conservatives have suffered over the last two and a half years.
The buzz of the day is that Samaras, is ready to hand over the party to rival Dora Bakoyiannis and her ND supporters since the election results achieved on May 6 have inspired many former New Democracy cadres to show their true colors.
The thought of Dora Bakoyianni coming back to the ND party personally gives this writer pimples. While she was acting Foreign Minister under the Karamanlis government she worked "underground" and built a strong army of devoted ND supporters who undermined everything Karamanlis was doing. At the same time so were other wannabes such as Dimitris Avramopoulos.
Indeed Avramopoulos sided with Samaras during the inner party election in November 2009 because Samaras’ strategy then only rested on rallying the right-wing base, and with Avramopoulos by his side he was able to gain the center votes. In a “joint declaration of principles and mutual commitments”, Samaras and Avramopoulos pledged to guarantee party unity and had said that they would distance ND from “nepotism, hereditary political rights, non-transparent procedures, political machines, and decisions without the approval of the party base”.
The thinly veiled attack on Bakoyannis referred to her initial reluctance to have the party base vote for the new leader, and her refusal to allow non-registered members to vote.
The Bakoyannis camp appeared surprised by the move, which came just two days after the party convention and a week after Avramopoulos withdrew from the race. So MPs and party officials supporting Bakoyannis went on the attack. In a litany of TV talk-show appearances, they charged Samaras’ party in 1993 toppled the ND government of Constantine Mitsotakis, (Bakoyannis’ father). Following this, Bakoyannis’ supporters had suggested that the new alliance against her was based on a backroom deal for Samaras to make Avramopoulos the number two in the party, a charge the two vehemently denied.
So the news which was accidentally leaked by LAOS leader George Karatzaferis a couple of weeks ago that Avramopoulos would assume a larger role in the party and even be baptized as prime minister of Greece, does not come as a surprise to us at all here at hellasfrappe. We can now see that the Bakoyiannis camp is still working against the ND party and its leader Samaras.
One reason we believe this scenario is because Samaras stopped collaborating with Chrysanthos Lazaridis, who was one of his closest political advisers. The distancing of Lazaridis was a pre-requisite for Dora's return. In fact an extensive analysis on this was featured on the defencenet news site claimed that if this scenario proves true, then in the first phase expect to see a ND leadership team consisting of the two vice-presidents, Dimitris Avramopoulos and Stavros Dimas, the head of the Electoral Commission Evangelos Meimarakis, the party spokesman J. Michelakis, ND Secretariat Andreas Lykourentzos and political adviser to Antonis Samara, D. Stamatis.
(Note: Avramopoulos is 100 percent pro-US -and liked by the State Department-, while Stavros Dimas is 100 percent pro-Brussels).
Meimarakis, on the other hand, is a faithful Bakoyianni supporter and will forge an alliance with Stamati and Avramopoulos.
So if the buzz proves true and personalities such as Dora Bakoyiannis return and at some point take over the party, then expect to see hard liberal Stefano Mano return, and "Mr. Flip-Flop" George Karatzaferis as well. All three personalities represent smaller parties but can form a strong pro-memorandum block and most importantly they are 100 percent pro-Dora and anti-Karamanlis.
Indeed Dora still has some wannabes left in the party by the names of A.Spiliotopoulou, M.Varvitsioti, K.Chatzidaki. Other MPs such as S.Kedikoglou were not reelected as were a dozen of other puppets who pretended to support Samaras all these months but were always faithful to Dora.
Another thing to look for is that if Mr Flip-Flop returns then expect him to drag in his army of loyal puppets into the party as well. (And oh boy... there are some characters in his party that should really be working for a circus and not a political party).
So if all the above happens, then expect to see many ND MPs declare themselves independent or switch camps and move over to the Independent Greek Movement under Panos Kammenos.
Also rumored is that if Dora takes over -something hard conservatives do not want because she wants to lean the party towards the center- then a third party will mushroom which will lean more to the right and also be against the Memorandum.
Hellasfrappe has stressed time and time again that the only personality that united all these wannabes was Costas Karamanlis. Now you see what he had to cope with under his leadership. Instead of all these MPs working for the good of the country, they were building armies of puppets because they had their own aspirations of becoming party leader.
Indeed Karamanlis has declared that he does not want to return to the party's leadership, but he will have to soon seriously re-think this if he does not want to see the conservative party turn into a three-ring circus of wannabes.
Refernece
http://www.defencenet.gr/defence/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=41387&Itemid=139
http://www.defencenet.gr/defence/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=41361&Itemid=139
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