Old-style tactics
The ostensibly reformist Prime Minister Costas Simitis continues to practice his old-style tactics, evidently unable to defend his party’s policies with strong arguments and to justify his mistakes and weaknesses with dignity. And so he still appears to regard the Right as the No. 1 enemy, blaming it for all the bad and ugly things in this world… In his desperation, the premier does not realize that no citizen in his right mind would ever think that opposition New Democracy’s «lack of a political agenda» is to blame for inflation, unemployment and other problems; nor that businesses are closing because the ND leadership is «hiding its far-right elements.» But even if anyone agreed with the assessment of the «reformist» Simitis that ND wants to pass on its «neoliberal» opinions into society «in the name of reconciliation between Right and Left,» that does not change the fact that PASOK led Greece into the eurozone completely unprepared. Or perhaps the neoliberal opinions and intentions of New Democracy are to blame for the fact that Simitis and his «reformist» followers did not manage to decide on reforms for the essential modernization of the economy, management, the health and education sectors and regional development following the party’s re-election in April 2000.
