Turning point
…With two years remaining until the parliamentary elections, Prime Minister Costas Simitis has found himself at a crucial turning point. His Socialist party has clearly been caught up in the logic of the coming electoral battle, and has been overwhelmed by the angst of a potential defeat, as this is reflected in opinion polls. Simitis is under intense pressure to make concessions and political compromises that are solely driven by the goal of securing a new electoral victory – at all costs, in order to prolong the party’s grip on power. The blatant oscillation on the social security issue, the freezing of structural reforms, the strain on the budget which results from these new electoral exigencies – these all highlight that Costas Simitis has already begun to oscillate between his duties as prime minister and his supposed obligations as party leader. However, for every political leader whose principal concern is to serve his country, a fair defeat should be preferable to an unfair victory – a victory that could even turn out to be a Pyrrhic one for the country… It is on the basis of this dilemma that the positive elements of Simitis’s rule up to now will be judged. These are elements that will not only have to be verified over the remaining two years, but they may well be tarnished should the prime minister give in to the electoral needs of his party.
