Moral deficit
The switching of deputies and party members from one party to another raises a number of moral and political questions. Political morality mandates that such transfers be subjected to the judgment of the electorate as soon as possible – that is, in the next scheduled elections. This is the only way to approve a switch, or to disapprove it by snubbing the defecting candidate. Assuring the election of the newcomers by putting them on prime electoral lists or those for the European Parliament, is nothing but a cheap trade-off. In this light, the state list presented by PASOK is morally dubious. The arguments and the excuses invoked by Stefanos Manos, Andreas Andrianopoulos, Mimis Androulakis and Maria Damanaki for joining forces with the Socialist Party will not be subjected to the judgment of the voters and, more importantly, they carry an immoral suggestion: The politicians take for granted that they continue to represent and express the will of what used to be their neoliberal or leftist voters. They negotiated this assumption with George Papandreou, who was somehow convinced that the four newcomers have something to contribute and are not after their own self-interest; that they will add to rather than subtract votes from PASOK. And driven by the belief that the newcomers will also sway their (ostensibly meek) voters to PASOK or, at least, that they will continue to be a genuine symbol and attraction for those who voted for them in the past, Papandreou awarded them parliamentary status according to merit.
