Venizelos says SYRIZA strategy failed in local elections
PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos claimed late on Sunday that SYRIZA’s strategy of trying to turn local and European Parliament elections into a referendum on the government failed on Sunday.
Venizelos accused SYRIZA of making “narrow party political choices that failed on a national level” after the leftist party only managed to get two of its candidates for regional governorships into the second round of voting next Sunday.
PASOK source, meanwhile, pointed to eight of the candidates it backed at a regional level making it into the second round. The Socialists were also boosted by the fact that Thessaloniki Mayor Yiannis Boutaris and his Athens counterpart Giorgos Kaminis also came out on top in their cities.
PASOK had backed both of these candidates as it followed a strategy of expressing support for hopefuls rather than nominating them directly, in contrast to New Democracy which nominated its own politicians to run in Greece’s two biggest cities.