By Penelope Galliou

A week of developments for what is happening in the ND, the one that starts today, with the last act of deleting Antonis Samaras from the party – for the second time in his political journey – will be sealed tomorrow, Tuesday afternoon, when it will meet in full composition the Ethics Committee of the ND Parliamentary Group. After the first shock caused to faction officials and supporters, the deletion of the former prime minister, the eyes of both Megaros Maximos and the Samaras side, turn to the next day, and apparently in different directions, while an unknown “X” in the internal party equation is the other former prime minister, Kostas Karamanlis.

From the Maximos Palace they declare that, after the sealing and formal deletion of the former prime minister by the Ethics Committee, they want to permanently close the “chapter” of Antonis Samaras, changing the agenda and returning to the “important and big” as commented by government sources, giving emphasis on the political stability of the country but also on solving the problems that really concern the citizens and on the continuation of reforms in this direction. At the moment the ND is and remains the strongest and most compact parliamentary group in the Greek parliament and has three years of work ahead of it in order to continue producing “tangible results for the citizens”, they note.

“2024 is not 1993” add the same sources, underlining that the prime minister is the guarantor of political stability and the faction will move forward united without Mr. Samaras. “Greece will not return to the times when it overthrew the ND government and put the country in turmoil,” they declare. Regarding the arguments of the Samaras side and what the director of the Press Office of the former prime minister, Nikos Tsioutsias, said about the reasons for the deletion, they answer that “whatever he says was not deleted because he indicated Kostas Karamanlis as more suitable for President of the Republic. But why did he insult the prime minister, the president of Cyprus and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, George Gerapetritis, by adopting the most extreme fake news”. They also argue that the country’s foreign policy under Kyriakos Mitsotakis is the most effective in recent decades.

The side of Antonis Samaras, on the other hand, leaves all possibilities open in relation to the next moves of the former prime minister, who is on a planned trip to the USA. The director of his Press Office, Nikos Tsioutsias, when asked about the possibility of Mr. Samaras proceeding to found a new party, stated that “the only thing I can say with certainty is that in the next few days Mr. Samaras will be in America.” A question remains as to the strategy he will follow in relation to the parliamentarians and executives of the ND who have been close to him for years, while throughout the last period of tense relations with the Maximos Palace, they belonged to the close core of his interlocutors. However, knowing the balances and relationships within the ND parliamentary group, they estimate that there is no “climate of support” for Mr. Samaras that could translate into moves against the party. Certainly, the decisive “crash test” for what will happen next will be the passing of the 2025 budget, which in any case involves a vote of confidence in the government.

Equally decisive, however, will be the attitude that Costas Karamanlis will take in the future, who in the past period made joint appearances with the former Messinian prime minister and on several political issues they came together recently, appearing – in different tones – but one common “front” against the Maximos Palace. a lights fall, as expected on the speech of Costas Karamanlis next Friday, at a book presentation in Patras, as only a few days will have passed since the decision of Kyriakos Mitsotakis to delete Antonis Samaras from the ND. From the first moment of internal party developments in the blue faction, Mr. Karamanlis, through his circles, took care to distance himself from what Antonis Samaras mentioned in his interview, clarifying that there was no pre-negotiation with Antonis Samaras regarding the proposal which made the Messinian politician the next President of the Republic to be Kostas Karamanlis. Interlocutors of Mr. Karamanlis, however, noted that he is not interested in the presidency of the Republic. As for the rest, the question remains whether he will decide to take a stand or implicitly keep his distance from both sides of his successors.