The leak coming from DIKO of the meeting of Nikola Papadopoulos with the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nikos Christodoulidis, caused discomfort to AKEL. Not because Nikolas Papadopoulos does not have the ability to move for meetings with the various “players” and, in fact, first choice in shaping his decisions for the presidency. This is clear for AKEL. However, it is considered that the move of Nikola Papadopoulos is in fact a clear game to anticipate the events and seek to formulate, with additional parameters, the agenda in his upcoming dialogue with AKEL and Stefanos Stefanou.
Some of the AKEL leadership consider that this is a reference point for the possible attitude and strategy of Nikolas Papadopoulos in shaping the data, in a dialogue that is expected to begin at the end of the week or early next. The party maintains that any leader can meet with whomever he wants, moreover, the possibility of his contacts with other political forces, Nikolas Papadopoulos announced publicly after his party's congress. However, AKEL believes that a meeting should have been avoided, which in fact is expected to create additional difficulties in the upcoming dialogue between the two parties. Especially from the moment when AKEL made public its decision to pre-exclude the candidacy of Nikos Christodoulidis, explaining the reasons for this decision. In Hezekiah Papaioannou, they also consider that the leaks to strengthen the tendency to support Christodoulidis in DIKO are inextricably linked to the decision of Nikolas Papadopoulos to meet with the former Foreign Minister.
His last paper >
AKEL's reading of Nikola Papadopoulos's behavior is that the president of DIKO is playing the last card to convince the AKEL leadership that he can be the alternative for a joint candidacy. The interpretations in AKEL are not out of reality. “There was no study for such a contact between Nikolas and Christodoulidis”, a party official notes in “P”. The party considers that it is not permissible for external movements to appear that aspire to determine the dialogue of the parties in an attempt to find the golden section. Such actions, they estimate, “cause only side effects in the consultations” and do not contribute to a cold assessment of all the data that the parties have before them.
Debates at the grassroots
The first discussions about the presidential elections continue in the party organizations in AKEL. All the information from the various party groups that come together brings some conclusions:
• Violent reactions of rejection of the candidacy of George Pamporidis. According to party officials, despite the insistence of some within the party to maintain this possibility, such a climate of denial has been created for the former Minister of Health, something that almost certainly prevents him from returning to the DIKO consultation table./p>
• Negative, although with milder tones compared to the reactions to Pamporidis, are the references to the name of the president of DIKO. While there is an assessment that such a candidacy can change many existing data so far, however, it is clear that the candidacy of Nikola Papadopoulos does not unite AKEL.
• However, there are few references to the party base for other candidacies, an image that is considered normal since the other solutions are not widely covered, while the party leadership still does not publicly predispose its members, friends and voters in other directions.
< p> Not in hindrance
At AKEL, however, they repeat in all tones that in the forthcoming dialogue they will move with open papers, but also without delay. They think that it may seem that there is still time to spend. They note, however, that as references to the public sphere around the two parties' consultations, the leaks of names and actions of those involved have evolved, there is a need to speed up discussions to clear the landscape. According to information from “P”, AKEL will seek to enter directly through them, putting the existing data in DIKO and expecting quick answers:
• Insistence on the rejection of party leaders from the beginning of the discussions .
• The waiting by DIKO for proposals from the Center and readiness for discussion on the basis of these proposals
• In the list of DIKO will be completed by AKEL names which also politically and ideologically not to be from the AKEL space, but to be able to unite the Left.
As they note in AKEL, the dialogue must be clear without setbacks and, above all, obstruction. At the same time, they will send a message to their interlocutors that the party's flexibility has its limits, the party will not be blackmailed, either out of consultation or at the negotiating table, and that no one should escape his attention that in any case he represents, at least twice as many voters as the Democratic Party.
