By Penelope Galliou

Ten days before the polls of June 25, on public television on June 15 the leaders of all parliamentary parties will once again cross the threshold of the ERT radio station and the television screens will signal the start of a long-hour summit debate, in order for the five politicians leaders Ms. Mitsotakis, Tsipras, Androulakis, Koutsoubas and Velopoulos to answer the journalists’ questions and the dilemmas of the new elections.

A telephone battle that will be held once and independently, without ultimately having a second debate between the first two political leaders, Mr. Mitsotakis and Mr. Tsipras, as there was as a possibility and as a proposal from the leader of the ND before the election result of May 21. Her sweeping victory however SW in the May polls, he overturned this possibility as well, with the prime minister, during the interview he gave on the state television program, now questioning the usefulness of such a bilateral telefight.

“I think it is contempt for the rest of the parties as soon as there is a framework which is set by the cross-party, to discuss about ERT between the first two” Kyriakos Mitsotakis initially said and added that “the election result to a certain extent canceled the usefulness, in my opinion, of such a debate. Therefore, we will have another debate with all the political leaders, I believe it is also useful at this juncture. I wish we could focus a little more on our programmatic discourse. This will be useful,” he estimated.

At the same time, the ND president expressed his belief that “the experiment of the previous debate was basically successful” and explained that “we are here to answer questions. The questions must be difficult and tough, I think that difficult questions were asked in the previous debate and I believe that the citizens who watched it would also draw some conclusions”.

Regarding the new teleconference of the five political leaders on the 15th of the month, it will have six thematic sections and the leaders of the five parties that entered the Parliament after the May 21 elections will take part in it. During the meeting of the inter-party election committee, held under the Acting Minister of the Interior Kalliopi Spanouit was decided that the thematic sections of the debate will be:

1) Economy – Development – Employment

2) Foreign Policy – ​​Defense

3) State – Institutions – Transparency

4) Health – Education – Welfare State

5) Environment – ​​Energy

6) New Generation

After the process with the six thematic units is completed, the political leaders will have the opportunity to make a short statement.

At the same time, the possibility remains open that the political leaders will accept a question of free choice in this debate, something that was not accepted during the corresponding procedure in the previous debate, but this time the parties appear more receptive.

During the meeting of the inter-party committee, it was proposed that the journalists participating in the debate should be given one question of free choice to each political leader and the relevant decision is expected to be taken at the new meeting of the inter-party committee, tomorrow Thursday, in the presence of a representative of the journalists which will be set by the six television networks.

In the same meeting, the details for the new debate will also be finalized.

During the meeting of the inter-party committee, SYRIZA insisted on a second debate, between Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Alexis Tsipras, which was rejected by the press representative of the ND, Akis Skertsos, repeating that this has no meaning after the result of the first elections in 2023 .

Regarding the rules of the debate with the five political leaders, the parties made different proposals. ND proposed to have 6+1 thematic sections and to allow free questioning. PASOK agreed to this, but SYRIZA reportedly proposed 7+1 topics.

Finally, the KKE expressed some objections to the date of the debate, as it has planned a meeting for June 15 and counter-suggested June 18, but in the end the first date was agreed upon.