Samaras ND bid gets big boost
In a surprise move yesterday, former Health Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos, until recently a candidate for the New Democracy leadership, declared he would support Antonis Samaras, thereby giving the ex-culture minister’s bid for the party presidency a substantial boost. The two men appeared together in a news conference yesterday afternoon to explain that they had found common ground and had agreed on some basic principles that would bind them. «With the strength of ideas, we can win on all fronts,» said Samaras, who was neck-and-neck with his rival candidate Dora Bakoyannis in two recent opinion polls. «Together, we represent the certainty of unity and victory.» Avramopoulos said he had always intended to back one of the two main candidates after leaving the race because of disagreements about the voting procedure. «I may have withdrawn my candidacy in the name of party unity but I did not withdraw my beliefs,» he said. «We have to elect a leader on purely political terms,» added the ex-minister, who denied he was backing Samaras because he had been offered a prominent role in the party. In a clear swipe at Bakoyannis, the two men said they wanted to create a party «that is in a position to rule the country without nepotism, hereditary political rights, opaque processes, personal mechanisms and decisions that are taken in the absence of the grass roots.» Samaras’s team is hoping Avramopoulos will bring him closer to middle-ground voters with whom the ex-health minister has strong appeal. Those close to Bakoyannis treated the alliance with suspicion, saying the two men’s views had been very far apart in recent weeks. «New Democracy’s political and ideological isolation is a recipe for defeat,» said Bakoyannis. «A party with a new leader but old attitude has no future.»
