By Antonis Anzoletou

Those who thought that Zachariadis – Doukas agreement for the second round of the self-governing elections is a harbinger of cooperation between SYRIZA and PASOK, they will have to wait quite a while longer. Or maybe they shouldn’t get their hopes up too much. It is a fact that the common front against the New Democracy candidate in the country’s largest municipality cannot go unnoticed. However, it relies more on the “honest” attitude of the SYRIZA candidate for the municipality of Athens and on his well-known – timeless views on the need to open the party towards the center. The collaboration has more “self-governing characteristics” and this seems to be preferred by Haris Doukas. In the event that Sunday’s results are so good it will be evaluated as a political event.

Koumoundourou and Charilaou Trikoupi in the post-Tsipras era they have a lot to separate. Maybe even more than before. First of all, there are not a few executives in PASOK who see the presidency of Stefanos Kasselakis as an opportunity to penetrate the space of the center-left. They consider the first step to have been taken in the self-governing elections and are now preparing for the next, which is the European elections. It is clear that PASOK’s goal is to finish behind the New Democracy in the June polls, seeing that Stefanos Kasselakis does not follow the “current” and “air” he had in the pre-election period for the leadership of SYRIZA. For this reason, after all, in the next period the attacks towards the new leader of the official opposition, but also towards Koumoundourou, are expected to intensify. Introversion has knocked on Koumoundourou’s door and “complaining” is a daily occurrence. The “white strike” carried out by several of its executives SYRIZA, who are on the side of the losers of the recent elections, disengages the official opposition from its institutional duties in Parliament. SYRIZA is a party with two different “souls” and therefore Nikos Androulakis will not leave unexploited the field he will find in front of him in the Plenary Hall in critical discussions. To this must be added the absence of Stefanos Kasselakis from the Parliament.

The national elections, as well as the regional ones, showed that there is a void in the space of the center-left. The “gap” for New Democracy from the second is not closing and experienced political analysts constantly report that it cannot be covered. THE Christos Spirtzis in his almost daily statements he talks about the need to unite the two even with a joint ballot in the European elections. And this is put forward as a necessity in order not to give room to create a new scheme that will essentially turn SYRIZA and PASOK into small and medium-sized forces.

At the moment, both Koumoundourou and Harilaou Trikoupi are betting on strengthening their position. And this does not pass through a common course. They will meet in parliament against New Democracy, however the polls that will follow, but especially the European elections, will be the crucial “crash test”. SYRIZA also has to go through the “complications” of its internal party procedures.