Campaign plans for new PASOK chief

Evangelos Venizelos is expected to agree on PASOK’s election strategy this week and to start deciding which Socialist politicians will be part of the party’s challenge at the polls.

In his second week in charge, Venizelos is due to form two committees to oversee PASOK’s campaign leading up to the polls, which will be held on April 29 or May 6. One will look after the campaign strategy, the other will prepare PASOK’s manifesto.

Venizelos will also have to decide who he wants to appoint as the new party secretary as it is expected that the man who currently fills the role, Michalis Karchimakis, will be ditched due to his links with the previous PASOK president George Papandreou.

The new leader will also have to decide who will stand as candidates for the center-left party at the elections. Two high-profile PASOK politicians who will not be standing are Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos and Alternate Development Minister Sokratis Xynidis. The latter said that he felt he had nothing to offer at the upcoming elections.

Pangalos, who is 74 and has been an MP since 1981, said that he felt elections should not be happening until 2013. The veteran politician cast doubt on whether PASOK and New Democracy could work together in a coalition government after the upcoming elections.

Ekathimerini.com