PROBLEM

Nearly three weeks before the May 21 elections, for the first time in 30 years under the simple proportional representation system, Katerina Sakellaropoulou will also become President of the Republic with the delicate task of managing investigative procedures in the face of the impossibility of forming a government. Yesterday, the President of the Republic opened the work of the 8th Economic Forum in Delphi and spoke in detail about the problems facing Greece in the still new 21st century. “Democracy is not a state of respite, it is a state of struggle with an attitude of self-defence against one’s enemies,” was perhaps Ms. Sakellaropoulou’s most interesting revulsion. The President of the Republic is always careful in his wording, but in this case its clarity is beyond doubt.

ACCIDENT

Watching for the second day in a row the rhetorical brutality between Hellenic Solution President Kyriakos Velopoulos and three fired/fired party members, I have come to the conclusion that the column urgently needs a translator. Antonis Milonakis accuses Mr. Velopoulos that in addition to 1,000 a month, which were sent from the parliamentary compensation to the party’s treasury, the deputies gave another 500 “black money”. Yesterday, Mr. Velopoulos responded to a former MP from his party that “I also gave Biden €10,000 every month. It’s a matter of fairness. He has to prove what he says. In the past 16 months, I have been checked 12 times by the SDOE and AADE.” Mr. Milonakis also accused him of putting up former gold miners as candidates, and Mr. Velopoulos replied that there was a committee that looked into criminal records. Immutable process? We will see it.

FACE

Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias has managed to “play” everywhere in recent days, even without using any of his limited appearances. On Sunday, he unveiled at the neoclassical Vasilisa Sophia Church the ongoing effort to free Greeks found in Sudan. On Monday – as responsible foreign minister – he was at a council of his EU counterparts, where he expressed Athens’ frustration with the EU’s so-called “strategic” compass. On Tuesday, he delivered a welcome speech at the launch of the National Strategic Outreach Plan for 2023 signed by Deputy Minister of Economic Diplomacy Kostas Fragoyiannis. On the same evening, he managed to announce the start of his election campaign in the south of Athens, in a Mexican restaurant in Floisvos. Last night at the Acropolis Museum, Mr. Dendias spoke at an event that (again) presented Greece’s candidacy as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for the period 2025-2026. Combining the bad (the return of expatriates from Sudan) with the good (elections are just around the corner), Mr. Dendias has managed to diplomatically weld it all together and present himself in the media incessantly in recent days. So this week he has a clear lead in views.

PLACE

It is not geographical, but ideological. It is the (political) center that, despite the important additional parameters of the May elections, remains the place where the outcome will be decided. The President of SYRIZA is making some efforts to solve this problem. Yesterday, speaking from the Delphi forum, he acted as a leader who will bring the country to the markets, however, in terms of candidates from the center, SYRIZA’s performance is currently quite poor. In N.D. two former PASOK leaders have already been announced, the younger, Kyriakos Pierrakakis in Athens A, and the older, Michalis Chrysochodis in the west, in an attempt to boost the authority of the ruling faction with names of people who were associated with minute results and came from the center left.

ATTACK

“But… they are you.” No, the copyright holder did not repeat the cc from KKE Dimitris Koutsoubas, but this time SYRIZA president Alexis Tsipras said it to another youtuber, Zoe Pree, I think in contrast to the interview Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis gave to Nefeli Meg. What Meg, what Pre, political leaders consider trolling a way to communicate with the new generation, so they exhaust all the one-syllable options that can only be provided. For reference, Tsipras, ridiculing himself, referred to Mr. Koutsoubas’ criticism of SYRIZA for the cohabitation pact as insufficient.