By Penelope Galliou

The prolonged pre-election period caused by the double appeal to the polls in May and then on June 25, would make many to bet that the political life of the country will experience conditions of extreme polarization and tension, referring to corresponding periods of the past which were marked by uncontrollable scandal, immoral personal attacks and libel.

However, the reality came to disprove any such suspicion or expectation.

Already from the previous pre-election period in May, it was evident the effort of both Kyriakos Mitsotakis and the majority of ND executives to focus on substance and not on impressions, with the aim of highlighting the government’s work, which was carried out during the 2019- 2023 and the consistency of words and deeds, promises and results despite the adversities he faced.

The effort in question, however, was most often “lost” in the maze of political confrontations and fights in the television windows, until the result of May 21 with the reversal of the correlations brought changes to the agenda of the confrontation.

The opposition took the message of rejecting the denial and the sterile questioning of everything and decided to turn the page in its communication policy, attempting to follow the tactics of the ND with a shift to the essence. “It’s just that she didn’t “calculate” her mistakes and own goals, her “unreadable” officials or the holes in her programs, as a result of which she is exposed,” commented a ND executive, referring to the talk of the last few days about the parties’ financial programs.

However, until the opposition “regroups” in the public debate, the ND insists on a political communication very different from what the country has been used to for decades now, introducing new tactics in political communication and “violating” the rule of political interviews.

Mr. Mitsotakis himself was the first from the previous pre-election period to break the “taboos” and began to appear on “lifestyle” shows, passing on the message as he commented during the his interview with ANT1 yesterday that “what we call a ‘non-political show’ can be much more political than the ‘political show’ which constantly deals with the ‘kitchen’ of politics, which ultimately does not concern many people”, he said yesterday on the Morning show to ANT1, describing his rationale and added, “lifestyle shows can highlight issues that are ultimately of much more interest to society than seeing two candidates for parliament fight again and regurgitate the same clichés, which ultimately lead the citizen to turn off the television”.

After all, achieving self-reliance and maintaining or even exceeding the percentage obtained by the ND in the May elections requires a door-to-door election campaign and vote-to-vote including all social groups.

In the communication strategy of Kyriakos Mitsotakis, there are high issues that are also listed high in his goals and they concern people with disabilities, women’s issues, whether they concern harassment or state support to be able to have a family, bullying and housing policy.

In the interview with ANT1, he also referred to me too, which he characterized as “a great achievement, primarily for equality and women’s rights, to be able to go out and speak and report, without fear, a case where someone, usually a man, tried to take advantage of you in some way, sexually, or used physical or verbal violence against you.” Mr. Mitsotakis also said he was very proud of the fact that the country with a center-right government “for the first time has a comprehensive strategy for LGBTI+ people”. Although he refrained from taking a position on the right to marry and procreate, saying that this is a function of society’s maturity, he said that it was his government that brought important reforms such as “blood donation being banned, conversion treatments, violent practices that traumatized truly childish and adolescent souls” which he characterized as “very important achievements”.

In this light, of communicating his positions to as many and different audiences as possible, the ND president uses social media and in particular the tik tok with the aim of reaching young people, among whom this platform is very widespread, succeeding in the previous electoral contest first among young people from 17 years old, overturning all forecasts.