Aside from a rather bitter and tense leadership battle, the main opposition party New Democracy is also split on whether or not it should support the coalition government’s initiatives. The Prime Minister’s initiative to call a political leader council meeting has revealed the distance of opinion amongst the party’s four leader candidates.
The decision of PM Alexis Tsipras to call the meeting has been interpreted as a weakness and inability to pass a series of critical measures and reforms through Parliament. As such, ND MP Makis Voridis argued that Mr. Tsipras must resign and allow former PM Antonis Samaras to take charge of the government. Other prominent voices within New Democracy however, such as Dora Bakoyanni, stress that a consensus can and must be reached, provided that SYRIZA and its leader ‘apologizes’.
Unable to find any common ground to satisfy all four candidates, the new provisional leader Yannis Plakiotakis is expected to attend the meeting without committing to anything. Any decisions will be taken collectively at New Democracy’s Parliamentary Group meeting that will follow the political leader meeting.
