The president and candidate for the leadership of PASOK, Nikos Androulakis, responded during the debate to what position his party will take on the issue of the election of the President of the Republic.
Asked whether he would continue to be president of PASOK and whether he would propose the re-election of Katerina Sakellaropoulou as President of the Republic, Mr. Androulakis said the following:
“We have months ahead of us and I want to tell you that it is very crucial who will be the President of the Republic, but ultimately what changes the government needs to have in order to have counterweights in relation to this – which Anna Diamantopoulou described very well. Right now we have a powerful Prime Minister who controls everything. We have to create institutional counterweights and we have to seriously discuss what the role of the President of the Republic will be. And of course the face as well. We will evaluate this. We will discuss this in our faction and we will make our decisions. But above all, the discussion that must be had is how we will achieve a dynamic separation of powers to become a normal European state where the Prime Minister will not be able to pick up the phone and do whatever he wants in the justice system, in the institutions.”
“The political tradition is that he (the presidential candidate) is from another party. But with Mr Mitsotakis, we will see everything,” Nikos Androulakis said significantly.