Just a few days ago, a cabinet minister who is said to have expertise in opinion polling predicted the electoral annihilation of the centre-left in the next general election.
This issue is not that the minister will be belied by the election result as all surveys indicate. It is that his statement reminded us that the creation of a progressive front that the ruling party is preaching is not being pursued based on ideological convergences but is instead based on vote-mongering and on an effort to pillage the political base of the centre-left.That is why it is failing miserably.
The ruling party has not learned its lesson. SYRIZA hastended to exploit a political interview with a prominent constitutional law professor, Nikos Alivizatos, who has longstanding ties to the centre-left, to suggest that he has been promised some position or office.
Alivizatos’ categorical denial demonstrated once again that SYRIZA is courting the centre-left in the wrong manner.
The case highlighted the fact that no distinguished member of the centre-left has responded positively to SYRIZA’s cunning invitation, which has fallen by the wayside.
From that perspective, the centre-left owes a debt of gratitude to SYRIZA because its attempts to pillage it ended up rallying it together.
The attempt to break up the centre-left united it and it shut its doors and windows. That is because the democratic part of the political spectrum will always be the country’s dominant progressive force.
