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Venizelos Says PASOK Over, Olive Tree In

PASOK Socialist chief Evangelos Venizelos admits his party's day is over
PASOK Socialist chief Evangelos Venizelos admits his party’s day is over

Essentially declaring his once-dominant party dead, PASOK Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos says it will survive the critical May elections for the European Parliament and Greek municipalities although it has had to attach itself to a new center-left political group Elia, The Olive Tree.
PASOK had been polling around 3-5 percent in polls after joining the coalition government of Prime Minister and New Democracy Conservative minister Antonis Samaras and backing tough austerity measures that have made most Greeks furious at the ruling parties.
Venizelos was made Deputy Premier/Foreign Minister in return for supporting pay cuts, tax hikes, slashed pensions and worker firings that his party had begun on the orders of international lenders in a previous administration headed by then-premier George Papandreou, who quit in 2011 after relentless protests, strikes and riots.
Fearing embarrassment and extinction, Venizelos – who had resisted – has jumped onto the coattails of Elia, a loose collection of intellectuals and academics without a specified agenda.
Venizelos said PASOK will do better than expected in the polls and survive, “but not as a party, rather as an understanding, as a group of members, as a faction, as a historical institution in local government, because any changes affected in local government is PASOK’s work, the democratic faction that is now expressed with the Olive Tree”.
Venizelos tried to downplay Papandreou’s appearance at a book launch with the Democratic Left (DIMAR) party that withdrew from the coalition last year in objection at the firing of all 2,653 workers at the now-defunct state broadcaster ERT.
He accused DIMAR though of“acting parasitically” and questioned its ethics although he and its chief, Fotis Kouvelis, had sat at the same table in Samaras’ coalition.
He said he wouldn’t expel Papandreou – whose father founded the party and who now sits in the back of Parliament as a PASOK deputy – saying “those are old practices” although he has used them on other members who defied his orders how to vote.
He also wouldn’t talk about reports that a prosecutor is investigating the party’s finances after 100 million euros was reported missing.
He made his remarks in a cross-channel interview with the little-watched Extra3, Kontra and Action24 TV stations, where he talked about the government’s efforts and strategies, as well as the future of his party.
He said Greece must get used to having coalition governments of disparate parties because of its fractured political landscape. As did Samaras, he said there would not be any more austerity measures and that he expects growth will resume after a seven-year recession.
He also said the major opposition Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) party that has been jockeying for the lead with New Democracy would lose in the elections although its leader, Alexis Tsipras, has predicted a victory so resounding he believes it will force snap elections before the government’s term runs out in 2016.
He said SYRIZA won’t win a single major district in the races for regional governors and mayors and said it has “no roots.” He said Greece would fail to exit a crushing economic crisis only “if we subvert it ourselves.”
 

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