Athens News Agency: News in English, 07-10-14

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] PASOK leadership campaign in full swing

[01] PASOK leadership campaign in full swing

PASOK leader George Papandreou, in his first public party appearance after the September 16 general elections that plunged the party into crisis after its defeat and the re-election of the New Democracy (ND) party, called for a "new beginning" for his Panhellenic Socialist Movement "which the Greek society also wants".

Addressing a lunch in Haidari hosted at the initiative of mayors and prefects backing Papandreou in the leadership race, which was attended by some 30 mayors and 140 local government officials from the Attica prefecture, the PASOK leader thanked them for their support for that new beginning.

"We have ahead of us much to change, first of all a political system that manipulates the political forces and local government".

He said that the new party profile he has proposed will have "the forces for us to head to victory", and criticised the party's course to date, speaking of "large, serious changes that we did not dare make but must dare to make".

"I know that there are interests that do not want us to make changes. I know that the clientelle relations are a canker that did not allow us to make changes. It is these perceptions that we are fighting and want to break," Papandreou said.

Papandreou's main opponent for the party leadership, MP and former minister Evangelos Venizelos, said that PASOK needed "a different type of political leader", addressing an event in Argos on Sunday during a tour of Argolida prefecture.

He said it was necessary to make use of all the cadres capable of representing the party's positions everywhere: in parliament, in the media, with the people. A new PASOK that was genuinely democratic and renewed in its actions, was necessary.

The party will choose what it wants for the country. The quandary is a historical one, Venizelos said, adding that in order to see who expresses PASOK, the climate of consensus and political culture must be preserved. "The procedure is not introvert, it is necessary for the party to enter society. PASOK exists due to the people, to whom we must give a substantive content of hope and prospect for the entire Greek people," he said.

In an interview appearing in the Sunday edition of Eleftheros Typos newspaper, Venizelos said that he wanted to act as "the first among equals" when elected to the PASOK presidency, adding that his target was to ensure the collectivity and democratic operation of the party.

Asked what stance PASOK should take on the proposed Constitutional revision, Venizelos said that after November 12 (the day after the party leadership elections), a discussion must be made on whether abstention meant "abstention only from the voting (in parliament) or also from the debates".

He further said that he considered early general elections a possibility, while on the change of the electoral law he called it "toying with the institutions". PASOK, he concluded, must be prepared at all times, as required by the role of main opposition party and the nature of a large leadership party struggling for the people and the country.

The third candidate, MP and former minister Costas Skandalidis, expressed his optimism that he would be one of the candidates in a second round of voting for the PASOK leadership, in an interview appearing in the Sunday edition of To Vima newspaper.

Asked about the "morning after" the internal party elections, Skandalidis stressed that it was everyone's duty to respect the outcome of the vote and surround the new party leader, regardless of who won, with confidence.

Skandalidis opined that, after PASOK's defeat in the national elections, the party's Political Council should have tendered its resignation, although, as things have developed, that would have been an "act of demogogy".

Regarding Papandreou's accusations that some quarters in the party were undermining him, Skandalidis said he considered it incomprehensible to believe that there existed party cadres who were consciously undermining the party's leadership in order to lead it to defeat.

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