PM, aides work on plan for campaign trail
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his closest aides are holding strategy sessions to shape the ruling center-right New Democracy party’s election strategy.
Mitsotakis and his aides have decided to divide the pre-election campaign into two distinct phases: Before Greek Orthodox Easter, which falls on April 16, they will emphasize the government’s accomplishments over the past four years; post-Easter, and until the May 21 election, they will focus on what they will do should they win a second term.
Given that political, and other, activity tends to slow down in the week before Easter, this poses the problem of the two phases being of unequal length.
This might necessitate dealing with the legacy of New Democracy’s governance issues throughout the campaign.
Government officials realize they must balance highlighting their achievements with acknowledgement of mistakes.
Mitsotakis and his aides consider the government’s strong point to be its credibility: Some of its main platform pledges from four years ago, such as lower taxes and higher pensions, were implemented. Officials say that New Democracy was elected on the promise to relieve the middle class from the excessive tax burden it was saddled with by the leftist-led SYRIZA government and it has delivered on that.
New Democracy will also showcase the government’s response to the successive crises it faced: tensions with Turkey, the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ukraine war and the resulting energy crisis that affected everyone’s everyday reality. “The New Democracy government dealt with all crises professionally and effectively,” a government official told Kathimerini. “Would SYRIZA have done the same?”
