Papandreou’s Return to Greek Politics Adds New Wild Card to Election
Party Could Siphon Votes From Syriza and Socialists in January Election
George Papandreou, former Greek prime minister, speaks at a panel discussion at the SALT conference in Las Vegas in May 2014. REUTERS
ATHENS—Former Prime Minister George Papandreou announced the creation of a new political party Friday, formally breaking with the once-powerful socialist party, Pasok, that his father founded 40 years ago.
No one expects Mr. Papandreou’s new party, tentatively called Movement for Change, to become a major political force in Greece, with only three weeks to go before a snap election.
But the weight of the family name still draws voters—threatening to siphon support from Pasok as well as the new, leftist Syriza party, which is currently the main opposition party in Parliament. The new party’s goals and candidates have yet to be presented, but could come at a news conference scheduled for Saturday.
“The time has come for the next big step,” Mr. Papandreou said on his website. “The time has come for us to build together the new political home that will house our progressive values, the values that united us in the past and still do.”
Mr. Papandreou, whose father and grandfather served as prime minister, was voted into office in a Pasok landslide in late 2009. But within weeks, the Greek debt crisis exploded, forcing Mr. Papandreou to eventually seek two international bailouts and embark on a painful austerity program that sent Greece deep into recession and all but destroyed his party’s popularity.
Then-Prime Minister George Papandreou addresses lawmakers in Athens in 2011.ASSOCIATED PRESS
In late 2011, Mr. Papandreou resigned after being effectively ousted in a party revolt for his handling of the Greek debt crisis.
He was succeeded by former European Central Bank Vice President Lucas Papademos, who headed an interim coalition government until elections the following spring. Pasok’s popularity, according to most recent public opinion polls, now hovers around 5%—a fraction of the 43.9% of the vote it won in October 2009.
Since then, the former premier has stayed on as a lawmaker in Pasok, which is the junior partner in the current coalition government with the conservative New Democracy party.
But Mr. Papandreou has mostly kept a low profile, and is frequently absent from Parliament, spending most of his time traveling abroad to conferences.
His announcement of a new party was expected, but many Greeks are skeptical of his plans. In a poll by the GPO polling agency in December, 85% of Greeks said that Mr. Papandreou shouldn’t move ahead with his new party and only 4.2% were in favor.
Despite that, with neither New Democracy nor Syriza expected to win an outright majority in the Jan. 25 voting, even a marginal showing for Mr. Papandreou’s new party could be significant.
“It could potentially create a chain reaction,” said John Dimakis at STR, a political communications consultancy in Athens. “If it manages to get some votes back from Syriza, this could prove to be particularly important for the final result.”
Syriza has promised to roll back many of the austerity measures Greece has undertaken in the past four years in return for €240 billion ($292 billion) worth of international aid.
In recent weeks, Syriza has seen its monthslong lead in public opinion polls shrinking. The latest polls show it with an edge of 2.5 to 3.5 percentage points over New Democracy, down from four or more a month ago.
But Mr. Papandreou’s new party may be an even bigger threat to his old party and his longtime rival, Evangelos Venizelos, who took over the leadership of Pasok following Mr. Papandreou’s ouster.
If the new party manages to draw away some Pasok stalwarts, the socialists may see their support sinking below the 3% threshold needed to enter Parliament.
“This is a reckoning between Mr. Papandreou and Mr. Venizelos; whoever manages to survive will be able to rebuild Greece’s center-left,” said Ilias Nikolakopoulos, a political-science professor at Athens University.
For months, Mr. Venizelos and other Pasok members have been entreating the former premier not to break with the socialist party. Most recently, Mr. Papandreou was offered a coveted spot on the Pasok electoral ballot as an incentive to stay on, but he declined.
On Friday, Pasok criticized Mr. Papandreou’s move.
“We are saddened by this unethical and irrational political act that is being executed by Mr. Papandreou in a cold-blooded effort to fracture Pasok a few days before the elections and establish his own personal and private party,” Pasok said.
Write to Nektaria Stamouli at nektaria.stamouli@wsj.com
