Some MPs, who have been rather vocal about the need for a leadership change, include Dora Bakoyanni, Nikos Dendias and Evripidis Stylianidis.
Samaras and his close allies are in the opinion that the party has overcome the hurdle and that the leadership matter has closed, but there are plenty of MPs in the main opposition party that believe otherwise.
As such, and in the framework to further entrench his position in the party, reports are claiming that Samaras is going to offer prominent positions to some of the younger and newer party members. He has repeated that he is not bothered at present with appointing new VPs,
(Kyriakos Mitsotakis – brother of Dora Bakoyanni – is apparently thirsting for this role.)
Former Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni is also another player who has been rumored to be considering the position of secretary of Political Planning, while former basketball player Vasilis Kikilias has been tipped for a similar post in the party.
Meanwhile, reports that are not in favor of Samaras claim that some MPS (or namely Dendias, Evangelos Antonaros and Marietta Giannakou, (members of the party’s “internal opposition”) are escalating their actions in order to prepare for an intervention. The same reports claim that even younger party officers (such as Yannis Economou, Vasilis Tokakis and Stathis Stathopoulos), are planning on initiating a political debate within the party.
As such and while speaking on SKAI Tv earlier this week, Dendias expressed his hope that the ND party would not splinter into smaller groups and said that the conservatives must reexamine their ideological message, "we must not become a far right groupuscule of 4%-5%, not fascist, but democratic”.
(Editor's note: Of course that is Dendias' opinion, because from what we know, ND lost plenty of its support because it shifted to the left! If ND re-shifts back to the Right it will regain the support it lost to other smaller parties such as Golden Dawn, ANEL, Drasi and LAOS. MPs such as Dendias and especially the Mitsotakis family are very comfortable with the idea of working alongside left-centrists -or so they say- like PASOK, the Potami party and others. Whereas the Karamalikoi -or those who still support Costas Karamanlis and account for two thirds of the party- are dead set against this move. The Mitsotakis family did enough damage to ND by attempting to shift the party to the Left in the early 90s, and there is no sense in repeating the same mistakes today. Samaras may have made mistakes while governing alongside Evangelos the Large, but he can now correct things by following a more Karamaliko frame of mind because it is the only force that will keep the party together.)
References: SKAI Tv, Kathimerini, To Vima
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