By Antonis Anzoletou

Fires have always been the cause of intense confrontation between the government and the entire opposition.

The fiery front that threatens dozens of regions, even Parnitha, seems to be, on a first reading, the first field of post-election convergence between SYRIZA and PASOK. First Koumoundourou and then Harilaou Trikoupi announced that they wish to bring the prime minister to the Parliament as soon as possible in order to have a discussion at the level of political leaders. The main topic will be forest fire prevention and response and civil protection planning.

On the one hand, SYRIZA it is clear that he does not want to be “immersed” in his internal party procedures for the election of a president, putting his institutional role as official opposition in second place. On the other hand PASOK shows that he is aggressively entering the new political year and does not wish to leave any space for Koumoundourou. The reverse, after all, happened with the descent of the convicted Ilias Kasidiaris in the municipality of Athens. First Harilaou Trikoupi announced that she would bring her own legislative initiative and yesterday SYRIZA announced that it would take a similar action.

Everything shows that the two parties, in view of the municipal elections, will not let anything fall down at the dawn of the second four-year term of the New Democracy. Executives from Koumoundourou and Charilaou Trikoupi believe that Kyriakos Mitsotakis will not succeed for a second consecutive term of invoking the state of emergency when people are charred and when from Saturday to Tuesday more than 400,000 acres of land were burned in the country.

The criticism will be harsh and they want it to culminate in Parliament in the coming days. THE SYRIZA has the disadvantage of the non-presence of its elected leader, while vice versa PASOK now has him Nikos Androulakis in the seats of the Plenary. The “competition” of the two for who will clash with Kyriakos Mitsotakis is considered a given. There will be a common front against the majority, but each of them will try to show “who has the sharpest teeth”.

The government “raised the gauntlet” to the challenge of giving answers to Parliament and everyone is expecting the first political conflict after the summer raston. The government representative, Pavlos Marinakis, replied that “at the time of battle, there is no room for sterile confrontation and partisan “activism”.

The time of reckoning will come. At the initiative of Kyriakos Mitsotakis, there will be a debate in the Parliament at the level of party leaders”. From SYRIZA, the press representative, Stergios Kalpakis, responded that “the fact that Mr. Mitsotakis has been backing away from SYRIZA’s request for a whole month for a discussion at the level of political leaders, a request that he repeated today, for the government representative and the pro-government media is a “Mitsotakis initiative”.

The government emphasizes that in any case the coordinated Greek state, through the competent authorities, takes all the necessary actions to investigate those who started the fires and examines every complaint. The party mechanisms have put the machines into full gear, as the new data that are causing the fires will be a “dowry” that the political leaders will take with them to the International Exhibition of Thessaloniki at the beginning of September.

The government wants to emphasize its achievements in the economy and that there is no “shadow” left by the fires. SYRIZA wants the new president to make a ceremonial first appearance on September 17 in the co-capital, making a substantial restart, and for Nikos Androulakis to mark the return of PASOK to the “group” of the big ones.