alternatehistory.com

I'm pretty sure most people here know that the as of late decline of social democratic parties has been labeled "pasokification", after the acronym PASOK of the Greek Social Democratic Party; from 44% of the vote in 2009, they managed to score 13% in 2012, and 4% in 2015, and are now polling at around 6-8%. The challenge here is to avert the descent of PASOK into political irrelevance, with a PoD of Autumn 2003, just before the March 2004 election, and the Olympic Games.

Some history: the party was founded in 1974 by the son of a former PM, an economist and an anti-junta activist, Andreas Papandreou. The party had some very radical, anti European and anti capitalist rhetoric, prompting other political leaders to label it as "more left wing than the left(meaning the communists)"; it swept into power in 1981, and on an almost Peronist/populist platform would overnight double or triple salaries and pensions, nationalize major companies and install party apparatchiks, while pursuing a somewhat progressive social policy. It lost the 1989 elections with its leadership almost being jailed, but got back into power in 1993, where it stayed for 11 years. In that period they mainly modernized services, privatized some nationalized companies, got us into the euro and prepared the Olympic Games. They were voted out in 2004, but regained power in 2009, then they were forced to implement the first memorandum, then they allied with the conservatives to implement the second memorandum, and are dtrently trying to reinvent themselves, without any luck. The party in Greece is somewhat of a meme now, most have it synonymous with corruption(they aren't very wrong), and definitely in no position to gain politically from most events.

Useful links:

PASOKification: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasokification

PASOK: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PASOK
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