Samaras takes the helm at Greece's ND

01/12/2009

Voters in the New Democracy leadership contest shunned Dora Bakoyannis in favour of a veteran figure who appealed to the party base.

By Maria Paravantes for Southeast European Times in Athens -- 01/12/09

"I accept the responsibility to take ND into new battles … We all won," Antonis Samaras said after his victory Sunday night (November 29th).

Antonis Samaras, the new leader of Greece's main opposition party, is a former foreign minister who took a tough line while in office.

On Sunday (November 29th), he won the race to become New Democracy's 7th party president, garnering around 50.2% of the first-round ballots.

"The people have spoken, the party base has spoken, the mandate is powerful and indisputable," Samaras said, vowing to safeguard party unity and iron out differences.

His victory over Dora Bakoyannis, the former mayor of Athens and foreign minister in the recently ousted administration of Costas Karamanlis, was decisive. Once considered a favourite for the party leadership, she managed only a distant second, with 39.5% of the vote. A third candidate, Thessaloniki prefect Panagiotis Psomiadis, picked up 10.2%.

Bakoyannis congratulated both her rivals following the vote, while again calling on New Democracy to modernise.

"The base of ND chose the party's new leader," she said. "The decision is respected and I would like to thank the hundreds of thousands of supporters who honoured me with their votes. A new chapter starts today for ND. The party must move forward, become a modern centre-right party. We will all be present in this effort."

In an apparent bid for political accord, Socialist Prime Minister George Papandreou met with Samaras on Monday to congratulate him.

"We look to work together on national issues, because problems are pressing and we need dialogue and agreement," Papandreou said after the meeting.

Samaras responded by pledging his commitment to Greece's interests. "We will work side by side on some issues and opposite each other on others. Side by side because we serve the same country and its people, on opposite sides because we are different ideologically; that's the opposition's role," he said.

The same day, he met with former Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, who resigned after the party's October 4th election defeat. Samaras announced that the next party congress will take place in the spring.

Political analysts say he faces the challenge of regaining the confidence of disenchanted party supporters while trying to tackle infighting within ND.

The Harvard-educated Samaras, 58, has held several ministry posts in prior administrations. In addition to serving as Greece's top diplomat, he has held the culture and finance portfolios.

Regionally, he is remembered for the hard line Greece took on the Macedonia name dispute during the 1989-1993 administration of Constantine Mitsotakis. Athens instituted an economic embargo on its neighbour and mounted a campaign to prevent it from joining international institutions.

His uncompromising views prompted Samaras to walk out on the party, in a move that eventually spurred the collapse of the government. He created his own breakaway conservative party, Political Spring, in 1993, but it was short-lived. He rejoined ND's ranks in 2004.

New Democracy's leadership vote Sunday was, for the first time, an open one. Non-party members were able to cast their vote after entering their names on the party register. A record 770,683 showed up at the 1,584 polls set up throughout the country. Expatriate Greeks living in eight EU countries also had the chance to vote at one of the 64 stations abroad.

About 1.5m euros went to the party coffers, as each voter had to pay a two euro fee to participate in the ballot.