A critical distance
Most of the mass media supportive of PASOK have already shown party chief George Papandreou a yellow card for playing a poor, indeed dangerous, political game. And the likelihood is that this will become a red card in the event of a poor showing by the opposition party in elections for the European Parliament taking place in two weeks’ time. Even more surprisingly, not one of the media organizations supposedly supportive of PASOK approved the party chief’s list of Euro MP candidates, or backed him against the reactions within the party which followed its disclosure. Some of these organizations simply kept their distance but others were overtly disapproving – both of Papandreou’s methods (without regard for party bodies and collective procedures) and of his final decisions regarding parliamentary candidates. Clearly, this stance by the media encouraged internal reactions which gradually escalated, culminating in Evangelos Venizelos’s outraged response last Tuesday. The head of the Euro election committee had asked fellow PASOK MP Maria Damanaki to convey to Papandreou his refusal to «be held accountable for decisions which were not essentially his» regarding the composition of the list of election candidates. Even Costas Laliotis broke his silence and joined a host of other deputies that adopted a critical stance toward their party chief…
