PM’s news conference
The nationally televised news conference on the occasion of the second anniversary of the April 2000 elections did not live up to its billing. It failed to transcend the typical, anarchic television discourse, which aims at creating impressions rather than centering on genuine politics. The prime minister said nothing new. Above all, he failed to meet public expectations. Costas Simitis’s answers lacked the element of self-criticism; in effect, they were not direct and convincing enough. Simitis’s defensive and rather miserable performance damaged both himself and the party. Had he described the problems and the hardships involved by tackling them in a sincere fashion, had he admitted the mistakes of his government, he would have come across as more credible and convincing. In other words, he would have come closer to fulfilling his main goal: to curb the decline of PASOK’s electoral power as reflected in successive opinion polls. Simitis’s account of these polls demonstrates that he has failed to isolate the problem of his government. It’s a fact that in 1998, after the fiasco involving Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, and again in June 2001 during the social security crisis, opinion polls put New Democracy in a wide lead. In both cases, however, the country was being swept by a political crisis. But now, the 8-percent lead has been consolidated and is continually widening. This should be a cause for major concern for the ruling Socialists. If Simitis’s interpretation of the opinion polls is part of a broader tactic, then the way he tried to show interest in the problems facing ordinary citizens reflected poor handling. He was caught up in a vacuous discussion which aimed at creating an impression, but which eventually tainted his image. When he got carried away in a discussion of the stock market, the results were disastrous. A large number of Greek citizens lost their savings in that debacle, and, well aware of the government’s opportunism, they have forgotten neither the remarks by the former national economy minister, Yiannos Papantoniou, and Simitis himself during the bull market, nor the plunge itself. Simitis missed an opportunity to make an effective political intervention. In his desperate attempt to react and reverse the trend toward electoral defeat, he fell pray to the advice of his communication experts. Finally, he did not just harm politics but also himself and the government.
