SYRIZA stole the term “extreme center” from Emmanuel Macron (coined by the French historian Pierre Sernat in 2005) in an attempt to denigrate the Mitsotakis left. Alexis Tsipras’ theory was that a small group of aristocrats with a background in the renaissance left make a big fuss on social media and become “Janissaries” of Mr. Mitsotakis for selfish reasons. Whether among the non-N.D. There are Mr. Mitsotakis’ supporters and overzealous adventurers, the figures show that the winner of the May 21 elections is the absolute ruler in the Center.

According to the exit poll, 40.6% of those who identify themselves as centrists (about 20% of all voters) voted for ND. As Pulse’s G. Arapoglou explains, it is the citizens who are often recorded as undecided in public opinion polls, they move around, form their decision with rational criteria and are not bound by dogmas. The electoral triumph of Mitsotakis is largely due to this public, which did not come from the depths of his faction and was mostly convinced by him personally.

An analysis of the loss of approximately 12 SYRIZA detachments from the 2019 elections to the 2023 elections conducted in Kumundur (under K. Pulakis) shows that 4.5 detachments went to the right, PASOK 3 and 3 more to the left. This is a rough analysis because it assumes that all 31.5% of 2019 voted, but it shows a seemingly paradoxical shift from SYRIZA to N.D.

“Synonymous with Fear”

Former Secretary General for Human Rights (under the Tsipras government) Kostis Papaioannou, attempting to interpret this phenomenon, concluded that “SYRIZA underestimated the notion of normality in a society with very low expectations after a decade of great weariness.” SYRIZA, he notes, “has become synonymous with fear of a return to irregularity.” He acknowledges Mr. Mitsotakis’ great influence in the area of ​​the Center, emphasizing that “he has managed to perform in front of many audiences at the same time, gaining recognition as a performer to the extent that he is forgiven for major institutional errors.” According to K. Papaioannu, “the desire that prevails in the Center is to never go back, to go further, to live a peaceful period, even if we crawl on our stomachs on the ground.” The exit poll showed that 20% of voters made their choice over the ballot box or shortly before, that is, 1,200,000 citizens made their decision in fifth and their preference for N.D. it was sweeping.

In the 2019 elections, the interpretation of Mr. Mitsotakis’s dominance in the Center was more obvious: the anti-SYRIZA front was in full swing, and the lines between center-right and center-left were blurred. Mr. Mitsotakis gave political embodiment to the “We remain Europe” movement that formed around the trauma of the 2015 referendum, when the geopolitical orientation of the country, that is, our very national identity and ontological security, was threatened in the first broadcast of the first world.

The notion persisted within the party that centrists voting for Mitsotakis were “extreme centrists” and aristocrats.

Four years later, with the wiretapping scandal uncleaned, the Tempe tragedy still fresh, and the government’s drive for reform limited, the explanation for Mr. Mitsotakis’s dominance throughout the center, right down to the left, is less clear. .

Dimitris Christopoulos, professor of political science at Panteio and a member of the group of technocratic academics that functioned as the think tank for Alexis Tsipras, sees this not so much as a success for the ND president as a failure for the president of SYRIZA. : “When you pretend to be something you are not, you are not convincing. When you pretend to be a centrist, the people of the center are not convinced because you are not authentic and your people are not inspired.” In his opinion, “distrust of Al. Tsipras creates uncertainty for the householder who needs predictability.”

“Change was a criminal slogan,” he continues. “Al. Tsipras is not a normal bourgeois politician in the sense that he does not meet this standard either in class or program terms. On the other hand, this guarantees that Mitsotakis guarantees orthodoxy,” he concludes. According to D. Christopoulos, “Kyriakos Mitsotakis was able to develop a centrist strategy because he dominated the right. SYRIZA did not dominate the left, and therefore, with every movement towards the center, she suffered losses.”

For if PAMAK Professor of Political Behavior G. Konstantinidis, it is important that “SYRIZA voted not as a leftist party in 2015, but as an anti-memorandum party, and therefore some of its voters were not tied to an ideological anchor, so they could elect N.D. “. On the other hand, he believes, it is not easy to give a precise definition of a centrist, who can be apolitical and defined on a “no-no” basis.

Many center-left may return to PASOK, this stake is open to N. Androulakis, according to G. Konstantinidis. In his opinion, SYRIZA has not matured over the past four years: “She moved with programmatic insecurity, ambivalence towards the Polaki school and the Chouliaraka school, and an aggression that seemed intrusive and suited the squares of the Indignant.

“Terrorized”

Dimitris Katsantonis, president and managing director of research and communications company To the Point (based in Thessaloniki), believes that those who left SYRIZA for N.D. mostly freelancers were horrified by the unexpected announcement of G. Katrugalos about the increase in insurance premiums. He had long seen that “Mr. Mitsotakis has become a very familiar face to the centre-left, given the unfinished development of PASOK.” And he believes that “this world belongs to Mitsotakis, not ND”, that is, this is his personal achievement. In addition, the first place of Mr. Pierrakakis in the 1st Athens and M. Chrysochidis in the Western Sector of Athens shows how different the ND is. Mr. Mitsotakis from the previous one, Karamanlika.

That is why the attacks received by Dionysius Savvopoulos (for example, from Elena Akrita and Pavlos Polakis) for supporting the independent N.D. they made such a negative impression even on Gavriel Sakellaridis, head of the Etheron (Institute for Research and Social Change), who was the first government representative in the SYRIZA-ANEL government.

For G. Sakellaridis, “The center as a political space is artificial in the sense that people with liberal views on the economy and left-wing views on rights issues can coexist in it.” In his opinion, the “key” to Mr. Mitsotakis’s success in this area is trust. “There is dissatisfaction with accuracy, wiretapping, corruption cases, but the proposals of the other side were not considered credible.” And building trust, as he points out, is a long process, and it certainly cannot be done in a month, that is, before the next election.