The competition for second place in the polls has resembled a game of musical chairs since the elections, with the position alternating between leftist SYRIZA, socialist PASOK and, most recently, the anti-establishment Course of Freedom.
Its leader, Zoe Konstantopoulou – who broke away from SYRIZA in 2015 to form her own party the following year – appears to be consolidating her hold on second place. And she makes no secret of her ambitions. With frequent television appearances, Konstantopoulou has begun to actively articulate her political vision.
Pollsters say that she is currently leading in votes among young people, young women, those who consider themselves left-wing, and those who are struggling financially. It remains to be seen whether this latest shift in the electorate will settle into a solid electoral choice.
Course up
The fluidity of the political scene after the 2023 elections – and especially after the European elections – has no precedent in Greece’s modern history. In Parliament, PASOK has overtaken SYRIZA as the official opposition, as a result of a number of breakaway parties formed by former SYRIZA members.
In the polls, second place has changed hands several times: from SYRIZA under Alexis Tsipras, to SYRIZA under Stefanos Kasselakis, then to PASOK, which was briefly challenged by both the far-right Greek Solution and the Communist Party (KKE), and finally to Course of Freedom, which is now firmly in second place.
“Even when the parties in power were under strong pressure in 2012, SYRIZA emerged and made it to second place without any back and forth and then won the elections, while before that we had a change of power [between New Democracy and PASOK],” says George Arapoglou, managing director of the Pulse polling company.
But is there a common pool of voters who alternately support all these parties? As Arapoglou points out, Konstantopoulou leads in four key voter segments: young people aged 17-29, women aged 17-44, those who say their economic situation is “difficult” or “very difficult,” and voters who describe themselves as left-wing or center-left.
“But they are not the only ones. Course of Freedom seems at the moment to have penetrated all groups of the population, in whichever way we do the analysis, either by profession or by region,” he says. “The same four subcategories that it is currently polling first with are the ones that gave SYRIZA the roughly 18% it received in the 2023 national elections, when Alexis Tsipras was the president, and the roughly 14% in the European elections, when Stefanos Kasselakis was leading the party.”
This is not the case for PASOK, when after the re-election of its leader Nikos Androulakis it was briefly second in the polls. Even at its best performance, PASOK was neither first among young voters nor among women aged 17-44, Arapoglou says, noting that this “is a characteristic that does not allow it to reap the demand that seems to exist in these categories for a challenger to power.”
“PASOK appears to be performing decently among financially struggling voters,” he says, “but still falls short of being the dominant choice.”
At the moment, Course of Freedom is acting as a pole of attraction for the fragmented, unconventional voters from various parties, says Angelos Seriatos, head of research firm Prorata. As he points out, one in three Course of Freedom supporters is a former SYRIZA voter, while the party also appeals to past abstainers, KKE supporters, and even disaffected voters from the far-right Greek Solution and the ruling New Democracy.
One in three Course of Freedom supporters are former SYRIZA voters, while the party also appeals to abstainers and disaffected voters from the far-right Greek Solution
“It’s not always a left-leaning crowd that moves. In fact, we have voters moving in all directions and getting mobilized by abstention,” says Seriatos, adding that it is impressive that although Konstantopoulou does not declare herself left-wing, 85% of those who say they will vote for her are positioned on the left and center-left.
Anti-systemicism
“The explosion in the polls of parties with a demagogic identity is due to the great crisis of confidence that plagues the country,” says PASOK MP Milena Apostolaki. “This is what turns the easy and demagogic discourse of parties into a host of frustration, anger and zero expectations from citizens, overlooking both elements of their authoritarian operation and the lack of program that characterize them. The problem is not just Greek, but this admission cannot be fatalistic.”
Deputy House Speaker and SYRIZA MP Olga Gerovasili, says, “The key word is ‘anti-systemicism,’ although it is misleadingly used, as it is not anti-systemic to be with Zoe Konstantopoulou.” She says that the situation is not the same as in 2012, “then SYRIZA was a rising power, but it was in political terms, not with heart signs,” she notes, referring to heart gestures Konstantopoulou sends to her followers on social media.
Voters feel that their dissatisfaction with the government cannot be expressed by SYRIZA or New Democracy, Gerovasili says. “One reason is that they believe that neither, having already ruled the country, can speak for them. The other is that our party has been wounded by everything that has happened to us since Alexis Tsipras resigned. The Kasselakis period has left deep trauma and this needs both work and time to heal, if we consider that this is possible.”
The collapse of SYRIZA and the Tempe crash
According to Seriatos, there are two events that have led to the current situation. The first is the collapse of SYRIZA, starting with the 2023 national elections. “It is a party that has been established for several years as the main rival of the right. Since 2023, it has been constantly losing strength and is now close to 6%. It is constantly shrinking and, in this process, it inevitably meets PASOK, which, temporarily and due to the internal party process and the decline of SYRIZA, came back to the forefront and enjoyed a brief period of upward trend.”
The second is the deadly Tempe train crash and what happened afterward, culminating in the two-year anniversary rallies. As Seriatos explains, the developments surrounding the collision have not only made things difficult for the government. “What has left an indelible impression on people is not the xylene, the expert investigations, etc; it is that in a European country, in 2023, two trains on the Athens-Thessaloniki route were on the same line for 12 minutes and 57 people were killed, and that is what crashed all those who governed, rightly or wrongly.”
Seriatos says that for some voters, Konstantopoulou’s party is perceived as something new, especially for younger voters who did not experience her previous parliamentary term.
Is it reversible?
Gerovasili says that the rise of Course of Freedom can be reversed, but only under certain conditions. “It should come to the surface and be exposed for what it really is. We all know Zoe, we all know her course, everyone remembers, but no one really reminds [voters] what happened. Nobody reminds us that she proposed her own father as president of the republic, that she was a member of the SYRIZA government mainly because of her father, or how authoritarian her behavior is,” she says, adding: “She doesn’t even let her party officials appear on television without prior permission. Apart from her MPs, there is no party structure. Ruling New Democracy does not really deconstruct Konstantopoulou because it suits them, the media normalizes her.” She also notes that the members of the New Left (a SYRIZA splinter) should return to SYRIZA so that it can regain its place as the main opposition in Parliament, as was the case in the election results.
Milena Apostolaki characterizes PASOK’s autonomous course as a “strategic choice” that “excludes alliances with parties that are characterized by a prosecutorial demagogic discourse and an obvious lack of proposals.”
“It is surprising to see the invocation of a parliamentary partnership in the context of a recent no-confidence motion, which was repeated in the past when two close associates of the prime minister were dismissed [in 2024], when at that time, and rightly so, no one had claimed that PASOK was aligning itself with Course of Freedom.
“The recent past reminds us that poison and demagogic false promises are not the solution. Trust is the crucial issue. When it is built, it generates hope and expectations that are not painfully denied,” she adds.
