How he judged the interview given to ERT by the president of his party, Mr. Nikos Androulakis, but also how he sees the proposal for both a joint ballot with SYRIZA and a joint candidate for prime minister to be elected from the grassroots, spoke to Proto Program Odysseas Konstantinopoulos, PASOK Member of Parliament and Vice-President of the Parliament.

“He didn’t criticize himself and couldn’t answer the basics – If he can’t beat Kasselakis himself, how will he beat Mitsotakis?”

“I think that Mr. Androulakis was not able to answer the basic questions in my opinion, which exist and are at this moment essentially. That is, someone cannot democratically ask him to go to elections and he invokes the fear of deletions. It’s like someone is afraid of elections. I think this is wrong. The second is that there is no toxicity when you tell someone and when you yourself, and in fact Mr. Androulakis had said before the elections that third place is defeat. And I say something very simple: if someone cannot raise the right, the possibility of questioning the leader and even when he himself has said that if I don’t win Kasselakis, I can’t win Mitsotakis? (…)”.

“Mr. Androulakis is afraid and does not want the (internal party) elections”

After their conversation, the PASOK Member of Parliament said the following: “I believe that he does not want to go to elections. If he wanted to go to the elections, he has diametrically expressed two opposite opinions: One at the beginning, in the answer to me that he will hold elections in 2025 and the other that he himself leaked that he will hold elections in July. And I think both have their own problems. We, the reasoning that we submitted is a reasoning that says that within the next six months and about eight months before the procedures that the statute says, we could do a process of political evaluation, election with a lot of people, with solvency, as we had done and the previous procedures. In other words, let’s invite strong candidates and a lot of people to come. And of course Mr. Mitsotakis, since we all estimate that at some point he may go to early elections, the faction should be prepared for the political framework of the next day and the enlargement”.

“No one said that Androulakis should resign – But the party must go to the polls no later than December 2024 – I will not be a candidate”

He then noted “The point is what helps the faction right now to get it right. I said that the timing is right for elections to be held within 2024, by December 2024 at the latest, where all the procedures will be completed and which will include: the evaluation of the elections, they will have a political framework and a discussion of policies through a conference . They have the manifesto of each candidate on how PASOK wants it and the day after the enlargement, it has the elections from the grassroots, a dynamic process and ends with the PASOK conference, where it essentially builds the pillars of political confrontation with New Democracy (… ). No one said that Androulakis should resign. They told him to proceed with the electoral process because we respect his right to be a candidate (…)”. As for whether he will be a candidate, Mr. Konstantinopoulos himself and the party said “no, I won’t be. And I have said this from the beginning.”