Does Papandreou Plan To Return To Leadership of PASOK?

George Papandreou has decided to place his career as a critical thinker and lecturer on hold for a while, and this is one of the reasons why we saw him earlier in the week planting a tree somewhere in Constantinople while the PM of Turkey was stating that he did not recognize the existence of Cyprus. In fact good old George has decided that his place should once again be in the Greek parliament -and at the leadership of the PASOK party- and because of this, (and in accordance with news reports), he is conducting his own research to see if the Greek people will once again have him.

Reports claim that his associates (and broader environment, including former MPs, and party members) have been circulating a questionnaire which asks citizens to note the positive and negative aspects of his term in government.

Why is he doing this?

Well word has it that he is preparing a novel and those who support him might say that these questionnaires will later be used as research material.

Others disagree, and claim that Papandreou wants to gain a deeper understanding of how society views the PASOK party because he sees it is hanging on for dear life.

The PASOK regime, which has governed this country for the past three decades, and which is highly responsible for the state of economic and political affairs in Greece, does not want to lose power and former MPs are now flip-flopping over to Papandreou's corner (behind Evangelos -The Large's- Back) because they are terrified that they will not even be able to make it to parliament in the next elections.

All this of course at a time when PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos is attempting to change the rules in the game by transforming PASOK into a more "centrist" party.

HellasFrappe on the other believes that George is simply paving the road for his future cooperation with Gianna Angelopoulou-Daskalaki.

Several months ago, we feautured an article (here) claiming that George Papandreou and Gianna Angelopoulos were planning on forming a new party in Athens, titled the Democrats and that this new force has the blessings of the Clintons! In that article we noted that the new party is going to be modeled after the relevant party in the US.

Now, the official Democratic party in Greece denied that report at that particular time, but there were too many other reports in the press claiming otherwise.

In all fairness, this is all speculation. Because we really do not know what kind of role Mrs. Angelopoulos can actually play. Nonetheless if we had to guess then we would automatically assume that she will deal with foreign contacts while George Papandreou lays the groundwork (or awakens his shady socialist network) all over Greece.

(Editor's Note - There are also some rumors -and totally unconfirmed- that the Greek government is planning on strengthening Greek-Russian relations. If these stories are true, then we can safely conclude that this is why George is getting back into the scene, after all he was the force that placed them on a below zero temperature to begin with. Is he coming into the game again to finish the job? It remains to be seen. Stay tuned Frappers, it looks like it is going to be an interesting winter season.)