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Former socialist prime minister Costas Simitis, who died on January 5, is seen at an event celebrating 50 years since the foundation of PASOK, at the Zappeion Hall in Athens on September 3, 2024.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
There were moderate New Democracy voters who did the unthinkable in 1996: They voted for PASOK. In essence, they voted for Costas Simitis (and necessarily PASOK) after years of \u201cblue\u201d and \u201cgreen\u201d party division. Was this the beginning of the completion of the Metapolitesi (the period since restoration of democracy)? Was it a phenomenon of integrating broader social strata with the lure of modernization?<\/p>\n
In any case, Simitis, who passed away on January 5, managed to \u201ctame\u201d the Greeks. It could have been the timing, it could have been his own personality, it could have been the generalized fatigue from the cockfighting, the machinations, the populism, the general impasse of a society in a Europe that had fundamentally changed after 1989. I remember the article in France\u2019s Le Monde titled \u201cBienvenue, M. Simitis!\u201d<\/p>\n
If one considers what had preceded Greece after 1988 \u2013 the Koskotas corruption scandal, the three election races required for Konstantinos Mitsotakis (then leader of New Democracy and father of the current Greek premier) to secure a majority government, the formation of the nationalist Political Spring party by former ND stalwart Antonis Samaras, the return of PASOK prime minister Andreas Papandreou and so much more \u2013 the prospect of a sober, pragmatic and European-oriented prime minister seemed almost as unrealistic as it was necessary.<\/p>\n
Simitis was one of the few people in Greek public life with such personal modesty. He was present, with his wife Daphne, with simplicity and discretion, at concerts and performances, continuing what he always did: be a civilized person. For a politician with a solid middle-class education, linked to the center-left by conviction, with bravery and a sense of duty, the fact that he managed in the mid-90s to break \u2013 even if unintentionally \u2013 the dividing barrier between the voters of conservative New Democracy and socialist PASOK was an achievement.<\/p>\n
His presence and contribution reflected the underground currents that had begun to take place in Greek society as early as 1985, when he himself, as minister of national economy in the then new government of Andreas Papandreou, carried out the devaluation of the drachma (Greece\u2019s national currency at the time) to rescue the economy that was in danger due to benefits and waste.<\/p>\n
In retrospect, one can see that the rise of Simitis was intertwined with a stage of maturation of Greek society. Certainly, this stage in the 1990s and 2000s was still early, and this trend had only spasmodically organized its base in order to spread roots and acquire the desired institutional representation. Simitis was an exception. He did not create a tradition, but he set an example.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n