George wants a new leader after the elections

George Papandreou announced his decision to refrain from being a candidate prime minister and president of PASOK once again.

According to information, the candidate’s election will come in two phases.

First there will be a candidate prime minister for the upcoming spring elections, probably chosen by the PG in January, and the new president will be elected in June by a vote from the base.

Members of the political council such as Yannis Michas, Nickos Salagiannis, Tonia Antoniou and Silvana Rapti, are seeking an election for the new president before the national elections.

In an official briefing to reporters, Papandreou’s spokesman Panos Beglitis proposed to start the procedures to elect a new secretary of the national council, new members of the national council and new members of the political council as well.

In his address, Papandreou spoke about his remaining in office and said that as a party they should have named the vested interests since those did have names.

He launched an attack against DOL publisher Stavros Psicharis, claiming that he had requested a loan from a large bank and because he failed to meet the conditions, he did not receive it and thus started attacking the government.

In a statement on Wednesday night, the editor of VIMA said: "It is true that DOL requested a loan from the National Bank, of which we have been clients for the last 90 years. Officially the bank said no. Informally they told us that it was not approved by Maximos Mansion. It is clear that interventions in the banks against newspapers that do not meet the wishes of the rulers show a fascist mindset. It is obvious that along with power memory is lost too, even of very recent events. Papandreou is asked to indicate the circumstances under which we met last time at Maximos Mansion and why we were asked to go in through the back door."

Papandreou blamed the failed attempt to merge the National Bank with AlphaBank to vested interests too.

Finally, he noted that there should have been major judiciary changes and gave as an example the case of his brother, Nikos Papandreou and the speculation that he profits from the CDS. Papandreou said that the judiciary system never examined this allegation.