Background fights for the ND leadership

Antonis Samaras' shadow cabinet reshuffle, now beginning to look like a joke, has been moved to next week.

The changes, announced last August, were postponed for after the elections, then  postponed again after the budget and are being moved from week to week.

The night of the budget voting, Samaras said that he will make them after the holidays and now Rigillis is saying that he might announce the new configuration at the beginning of next week.
 
“Who's the leader of this party?”

Until then, the war keeps raging between individuals and teams for better positions, since these will ensure promotion. The whole process comes in the aftermath of the speech by Samaras' co-speaker, Failos Kranidiotis, who said «ND needs idealist fighters and not mama's boys», pointing to the MP's of the middle ground.

Kranidiotis was made a target by part of the press who, in harmony with Dora Bakogianni, is attempting to devalue those Samaras colleagues which he has kept on from the past.

In this atmosphere, some are asking the question «who is leading this party» meaning that the new team that Samaras will present will demonstrate whether he will impose his opinion or remain a prisoner of intraparty balances.

There are two opinions in the party background on these changes.

According to the first, the ND stationary position in the polls is due to the people who make up the team so far, and this is why Samaras will have to chose MPs who will improve the party's image.

According to the second, the problem is that Samaras did not send a clear message to the Greek society after the «No» to the memorandum, which was canceled out by a series of yes's to the government measures, with his consent for the horizontal cut in DEKO wages as the climax. So, Samaras will have to clarify the ideological and political signal of the party, which will differentiate it from PASOK, LAOS and DiSY, and then create a homogenous team.

Positions such as «we, too, would have had to sign some memorandum, we must consent with the government and show responsibility, and in foreign affairs follow the calm politics line with Turkey» is the prevailing opinion in ND, and is ultimately pressuring Samaras in this direction.

Structural changes and persons

Until now Samaras has made changes with the creation of super sectors with  respective coordinators: Finance, which will run the finance-related sectors, Foreign Affairs, Defense and Public Order, Education-Culture-Tourism,  Infrastructure with Transport, Energy and Public Works, and Regional and Rural Development.  

He will reunite the Committee of Political Planning and Programing, with Stylianidis at the helm. The coordinators will have reinforced roles in the communication for the promotion of their department.  

Other individuals whose names are being heard are Kostis Chatzidakis and Kyriakos Mitsotakis for the Finance or Infrastructure sectors, Kostas Markopoulos, Maximos Charakopoulos and Nikos Dendias.

The question remains whether Panos Panagiotopoulos will be moved, given that no one better has been suggested for his position. However, he might be assigned the role of leading parliamentary representative or coordinator in the super sector of Foreign Affairs and Defense.

The two vice presidents, Stavros Dimas and Dimitris Avramopoulos, and Samaras' consultants will take part in the compact leading team that will meet every day at the new offices in Syggrou.