PASOK’s French fear

Jospin’s political demise is seen as fate waiting for Simitis

The week following the shocking results of the French presidential elections, in which extreme right-winger Jean-Marie Le Pen pushed Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin out of the running, going into a run-off with incumbent Jacques Chirac, has been full of political ferment in Greece as well.

Jospin’s loss has been seen by opposition parties and by members of the ruling PASOK party as a lesson for the government, which is also a Socialist movement that has tried to adopt liberal models. PASOK, to these critics, managed neither to serve developmental needs nor to redistribute wealth satisfactorily and is in line for the punishment meted out by the French electorate to Jospin and his Socialists.

Nikos Constantopoulos, leader of the small Left Coalition party, said in an interview with Kathimerini on Sunday that PASOK’s policies were pushing voters toward the conservative New Democracy party. “PASOK is handing power over to New Democracy,” Constantopoulos said. Prime Minister Costas “Simitis, at the end of a period of conservative government, cannot appear to be a modern left winger nor can he offer the promise of being a modern left winger.”

From the conservative camp, former Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis attacked the government, saying that Simitis no longer had anything to offer the country. “He must go,” Mitsotakis said in an interview with Eleftheros Typos yesterday. “Someone else must take his place.” Mitsotakis challenged Simitis to follow Jospin’s example and resign if the results of the local and provincial elections in October are not good for PASOK. “This government can no longer be useful to the Greek people,” said Mitsotakis who is honorary chairman of New Democracy. He stressed that Simitis had achieved positive things “because he had the luck to bring Greece into the Economic and Monetary Union.”

Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos, speaking about Le Pen’s rise, said: “It was a shock which shows us that politics are not dead but are always present. And if anyone believed that the big problems have been solved, they must think again, think politically and fight for them.”