With a clear focus on the next election, Kyriakos Mitsotakis is seeking to shape the framework within which voters will be called upon to make their decision.
In his recent interview with SKAI, the prime minister set out a series of key dilemmas that he will continue to put to voters throughout the campaign.
The aim is to focus the agenda on a comparative assessment of policy choices for the next phase, a field in which Maximos Mansion believes it has an advantage.
The first dilemma directly concerns the prime minister as a person. Kyriakos Mitsotakis is asking voters to judge him against the other party leaders, citing the experience he has gained over 7.5 years in government, as well as his willingness to continue the effort.
By stressing that, in a parliamentary democracy, the candidates for prime minister are specific figures drawn from the parties’ leaderships, he is seeking to make voters’ personal political assessment a decisive factor at the ballot box.
Another election dilemma for New Democracy concerns credibility. Mr Mitsotakis is urging voters to consider not only what parties promise, but also whether their commitments are backed by real data and can be delivered.
Along the same lines, he is asking voters to assess his government’s consistency against what it pledged in the 2023 election.
The prime minister presents the government’s record as a kind of «passport to credibility» for a new four-year term. The approach also reflects Maximos Mansion’s effort to frame the next election around two distinct assessments: what the government has achieved so far, and whether its programme for the next four years will be convincing and economically realistic.
Foreign policy
The third dilemma set out by the prime minister concerns foreign policy and diplomacy. Here, he is emphasising personal communication and the relationships built between political leaders.
As he points out, the ability to communicate directly with key international counterparts is not always visible in public debate, but can prove particularly important both in bilateral contacts and in managing regional issues.
He also highlights the current climate and an environment of heightened geopolitical uncertainty, in which this dilemma is considered especially important.
The government’s narrative is reinforced by comments from government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis, who, in an interview with Real News, emphasised the government’s consistency and the realism of its programme for the next four years.
He said New Democracy’s electoral success did not depend on which party came second, but on whether the government could convince voters that it had delivered on its commitments and had a workable plan for the future.
He also set out the central dilemma as the government sees it: whether the country will continue to move forward and strengthen its position, or return to the policies and practices of the past which, according to the government’s argument, have been tried and failed.
The same framework includes sharp criticism of both ELAS and PASOK, which the government seeks to conflate and place in the category of parties that, with a heavy dose of populism, promise everything to everyone without costing their proposals or offering realistic plans.