In November 2011, the decision of New Democracy MP for Athens B, Panos Kammenos, to vote against the government of Lucas Papademos in a vote of confidence resulted in his expulsion from ND’s parliamentary group. Three months later, on 24 February 2012, on his personal social networking accounts, on Facebook and Twitter, Kammenos announced the founding of a new party.
Defeat and standstill The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) does not figure among the political forces that have been strengthened during the turbulent four years of the Memorandum. Having consolidated its position during the 2004-2007 election cycle, thanks to the gradual waning of PASOK, its fortunes again declined at the beginning of the crisis, due to the sudden collapse of New Democracy and the unexpected rebound of George Papandreou in elections in 2009. KKE’s electoral strength fell from 8.2% in parliamentary elections in 2007, to 7.5%, with a loss of 67,000 votes.
The government crisis caused by the closure of state broadcaster ERT resulted in the withdrawal of Democratic Left (DIMAR) and an inglorious end to the three-party coalition. This development reopens the question concerning the outlook for the ‘Center-Left’. In elections in 2012, this portion of the party spectrum was mainly represented by two party formations, the remnants of PASOK and DIMAR, whose ideological and political positions to a great extent overlap. In aggregate, the two parties polled 18.5% in the June elections, over 1 million (1,141,000) votes. They thus constituted a strong bulwark against the rapid advance of the Left, which today has become destabilized.