By Penelope Galliou

At the time that Alexis Tsipras is trying to put out the fire that Pavlos Polakis lit inside SYRIZA in the final stretch before the elections, the Maximos Palace is closely monitoring the developments, weighing them and using them as he sees fit in his pre-election agenda.

After all, the timing is such that the Polakis issue – which for the ND has been reduced to a SYRIZA issue – is expected to be “high” in Piraeus’ arguments against SYRIZA and its president, as its aim is to show that the threats and the positions of Pavlos Polakis is not an isolated case, nor can it be considered detached from corresponding opinions that were expressed in the past by Alexis Tsipras himself.

After all, Alexis Tsipras also showed this during his speech at the conference “My health 2023 – Modern Health System centered on people”, during which he characterized the president of SYRIZA as the “main exponent of “polarization”.

Besides, in Megaros Maximos it is estimated that even the universal break with Pavlos Polakis and his removal will not be enough, in the time remaining until the polls, for a “change of course” so that the leadership of SYRIZA can change the image created by such behaviors like that of Pavlos Polakis and to address without “weights” the centrist space that he so wants to approach.

A deletion – according to government sources – cannot act as a “sponge” for the government past of Alexis Tsipras, who in 2015-2019 governed together with Yannis Varoufakis and Pavlos Polakis but also with Nikos Pappas and then they had placed the world of the center “opposite” and with abusive characterizations.

“Either we finish them, or they finish us” was an opinion expressed by Alexis Tsipras in the run-up to the 2015 election, and in the “ears” of Megaros Maximos it does not sound less heavy than “if we don’t clean them up, it won’t be any different the second time” by Pavlos Polakis. But also the “germanotsoliades”, the recent calls for the restoration of democracy “either with good or with the wild” were words and insults many times by SYRIZA executives, for which – as government sources comment – no leadership came out to collect them , nor did he ask for an explanation.

And of course for the ND, the case of the unanimous conviction of Nikos Pappas by the Special Court is not treated separately either. A decision that was disputed by a number of executives but also centrally by SYRIZA, demonstrating, according to Megaros Maximos, once again, anti-institutional behavior. “How is it possible that Mr. Polakis is expelled from the ballots for what he wrote on Facebook and that the former minister who was convicted for an operation to control and manipulate the information remains on them”, ask Mr. Mitsotakis’ associates.

With all this, in any case the ND is expected to “flourish” and strengthen its pre-election agenda by keeping the Polakis issue high but also the hypocrisy – as they say – of SYRIZA, attempting to increase its own influence in the centrist space, where and based on the measurements it maintains a clear lead over SYRIZA.

In this climate Kyriakos Mitsotakis will be today in West Thessaloniki where he will have contacts with institutional bodies and citizens while he is expected to announce during his speech in the afternoon in Stavroupoli his candidacy also on the ballot of First Thessaloniki, which is considered highly important for the blue faction as the void left by the former prime minister, Kostas Karamanlis, must be filled.

The next step in the final stretch for the announcement of the election is Friday’s Council of Ministers with the main topic of raising the minimum wage, while the Prime Minister’s announcements on the date of the election are timed next week.​