Main opposition New Democracy (ND) leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis over the weekend announced that he’s determined not to include a close relative in any future government he heads up, in case the center-right party wins an upcoming election and he becomes prime minister.
The statement, part of a wide-ranging interview published in the Sunday edition of the Athens daily “Kathimerini”, is particularly relevant in modern Greek politics, given criticism of nepotism had bedeviled the country’s political system for decades if not longer.
Mitsotakis himself is the son of late prime minister Constantine Mitsotakis, who was in power between 1990 to 1993, and the younger brother of former foreign minister and Athens mayor Dora Bakoyannis. George Papandreou, the prime minister from late 2009 to late 2011, was the son and grandson of prime ministers (Andreas and Georgios Papandreou, respectively), while Costas Karamanlis, premier from 2004 to 2009, was the first nephew of late prime minister and president Constantine Karamanlis.
“I know this hard and possibly unfair, especially for Dora, who has contributed so much to the party, and no one disputes her abilities. It is, however, necessary at this point in time, it’s part of the mission that I have assumed,” he was quoted as saying.
Another highlight of his interview was a promise to revise the constitution in terms of the election of a president of the republic by an extended majority of Parliament deputies, whereby failure to elect the figurehead Greek head of state will not automatically lead to a snap election.
Failure to elect a president by the necessary majority (180 MPs) in Parliament in January 2015 led to a snap election and a landslide victory by then radical leftist SYRIZA, which rode to power on an anti-austerity, anti-bailout, anti-capitalist platform.
Mitsotakis also echoed his party’s opposition with a further change in election laws towards a more simple representational system, saying he’ll work to avoid unstable governments in Greece.
Finally, in a more personal note, Mitsotakis called recent attacks by the leftist-rightist coalition government, and even PM Alexis Tsipras himself, against his wife, Mareva Grabowski-Mitsotakis, as “cowardly”. He linked the attacks, mostly touching on the fact that the latter is a co-owner of a Cayman Island (offshore) company in her capacity as a fund manager for investors outside of Greece, to an attempt to divert public opinion from a controversial and ultimately ill-fated munitions deal the Tsipras government tried to complete with Saudi Arabia.
