Greek difficulties

DW: Three weeks before the parliamentary election, former Prime Minister Giorgos Papandreou has launched a new party called the Movement of Democratic Socialists. Should his political rivals be worried?

Heinz-Jürgen Axt: If you look at the current state of Papandreou's old government party, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement [PASOK], you have to say: this party shouldn't really have anything to fear, if only because PASOK has already suffered a huge loss of trust among voters. Of the almost 50 percent of votes it had in the 1980s, barely seven percent have remained. That is so massive that Papandreou will likely inherit only a small portion of it.

PASOK was founded by Papandreou's father Andreas. Are the socialists now facing a fundamental test?

They already have. There have been numerous reports that Giorgos Papandreou does not agree with the course that current PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos is taking. Indeed Venizelos has already reacted to PASOK's splintering and described as a "sad development."

But Papandreou won't just be aiming at PASOK's voters - he will also go after Alexis Tsipras' Syriza party, which, according to the polls, could win the election.

If you look at history since the end of Greece's military dictatorship in 1974, you'd have to assume that the socialists could seduce Syriza's leftist radicals away too. Andreas Papandreou in particular understood very well how to make signals to the left to catch a few radicals, only to then plot a centrist course.

But Giorgos Papandreou will find that a lot more difficult than his father. Because for one thing Syriza has consolidated its position in recent opinion polls, and for another, Giorgos Papandreou is not someone who can make impartial appearances and promise his voters anything. After all, as prime minister he was in charge when the disaster of Greece's debt policies came out in 2009. And he followed the course that the Troika is dictating even now.

In the past, a not inconsiderable number of PASOK voters switched to Syriza. Papandreou will be able to retrieve a few political and personal followers, but a lot of Syriza voters are calling for a fundamental opposition to the current reform course. And he can't distance himself from that, because he has publicly accepted his part of the responsibility for the predicament that Greece is in.

Will it be possible to sell a 62-year-old former prime minister to voters?

The two government parties, Nea Dimokratia and PASOK, are the "old parties." For Greek voters the question is: who should they vote for next? If I want to stay in the eurozone, then I have to vote for a representative of the old parties, who caused the debt crisis. The opposition Syriza is promising heaven and earth, but has so far failed to show how it wants to realize those promises.

Is there even room for a new party in the system?

There is of course the former coalition partner Dimar - independent left - which has positioned itself somewhat between Nea Dimokratia and PASOK. Maybe Papandreou is also looking at their voters and party members. Dimar currently has about five percent of the vote. This is all still just speculation, but I can certainly imagine that Papandreou will reach the three percent hurdle with support from various camps.

What roles do political parties in Greece still play after the tough crisis years?

Greeks orient themselves mainly around charismatic leaders - you can see that from the election research. It's no coincidence that there were always three big families that provided the leadership: they were called Mitsotakis, Karamanlis, and Papandreou. And it was usually the charismatic leader that attracted the voters, rather than their manifestos. Party political programs like those we're used to in central Europe don't play a big role in Greece.

Giorgos Papandreou was never expected to become a charismatic leader. I remember the 1980s and 1990s very well, when everyone used to say that PASOK would die with Andreas Papandreou. But Giorgos Papandreou fought hard and was able to develop a certain charisma and drawing power.

But of course he's not in the same league as Alexis Zsipras of Syriza. Since 2009, Zsipras has appeared as a young, shining, unburdened hero with nothing to answer for. But we can also see clearly that even this heroic figure has received a few scratches. The latest opinion polls show some losses for Syriza.

At the end of January, the Greeks will have a choice: on the one side there is some hope of improvement in Greece, but on the other there is Zsipras, and the promise of many social benefits, though it is completely unclear how they are to be financed.

Professor Heinz-Jürgen Axt is vice president of the Southeast Europe Association. His specialties at the University of Duisburg/Essen included European integration and Greece.