On election day, the Papandreou name failed to work its old magic. Now, Greece's best-known political dynasty could face extinction after a half-century's affair with power. Shocked out of their usual voting patterns by the summer's unprecedented wildfires, Greeks dealt a blow to both major parties on Sunday, switching support to smaller groups.But the socialists fared by far the worst, clocking their poorest result in 30 years, while the conservatives were narrowly re-elected.
George Papandreou — who heads the PASOK party founded by his late father, the anti-U.S. firebrand Andreas Papandreou — had barely finished his concession speech when he faced a challenge to his party leadership. The 55-year-old son and grandson of Greek prime ministers could now suffer an embarrassing exit.
Declaring his candidacy, former Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos asserted: "PASOK could and should have won, for the good of the country, but it lost. We have unfortunately suffered a clear and great defeat." With 99.8 percent of votes counted, PASOK narrowed the gap over Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis' conservatives to 3.7 percent, from 4.8 percent in 2004. But the socialists still lost votes against a government weakened by financial scandal and its response to forest fires that killed at least 65 people.
The left-leaning Ethnos daily said the result "reflects the desperate inability of George Papandreou's PASOK to capitalize on the attrition suffered by ... the worst government since 1974, as (Papandreou) himself termed it, and to establish itself as a credible alternative."
| Details of numbers and analysis of Greek 'lectoral systems at the link if you are so inclined. |