Athens News Agency: News in English, 09-10-11

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] New ND leader election procedure 'open'

[02] KKE on elections outcome

[01] New ND leader election procedure 'open'

This means, Koumoutsakos clarified, that the Congress, after being convened as a body, has the ability to decide even on a change in the procedure for the election of the party leader, with the participation of the ND rank and file.

The issue has not closed, he said, and discussion will continue at the next meeting of the organising committee, which will take place at noon on Monday at the ND headquarters on Rigillis street.

Under the organising committee's decisions, all members of the party have the right to submit candidacy for the ND leadership, and must be submitted in writing by 8:00 p.m. on Thursday (October 15). To be finalised, a candidacy must be re-submitted, by 8:00 p.m. on October 22, accompanied by the signatures of 50 Congress delegates, with each delegate having the right to sign only one candidacy. Immediately afterwards, the process of drafting the list of delegates, in accordance with the current party charter, will begin.

The four anticipated candidates were invited to a meeting by the organising committee on Saturday evening to present their thoughts and proposals on the procedure that should be followed for the election of a new party leader, following former prime minister Costas Karamanlis' resignation from the ND helm after the party's election defeat, which will be effective as of November 8, the day after the extraordinary Congress.

Caption: Main opposition New Democracy (ND) party headquarters on Rigillis street in central Athens. (ANA-MPA)

[02] KKE on elections outcome

The statement stressed that the KKE believes in the people, the labor movement, the dynamic of its alliance with the radical forces of the movement, the self-employed and the poor farmers, and the women and youth who belong to the working classes, adding that its responsibility becomes even greater for a rallying of the forces and organisation of the popular masses and repelling the anti-popular measures, while noting that the KKE's post-electoral ability for intervention can and must become broader and more efficient.

It said that the KKE and its youth organisation KNE will broaden their communication with the working classes, the youth who voted for the ruling PASOK and main opposition New Democracy (ND) parties, so as to form a single front "from the bottom up" of workers, farmers, self-employed, women and youth, economic immigrants and political refugees.

PASOK's victory in the national elections leads to an alternation in the government, not to a change in policy to the benefit of the working people, the statement said, warning that the new government will belie more quickly than any other the hopes and expectations of the working people, youth and women. It will belie that it can be a more pro-people version of the same policy and can confront the consequences of ND's and the EU's anti-popular policy.

Regarding ND specifically, the KKE said that regardless of how it manages its heavy electoral defeat, it will nevertheless comprise a factor of pressure on the government to speed up the anti-labor, and more generally anti-popular, restructuring, as it does not want, and cannot, play the role of defender of the people's demands.

Further, no grace period must be given to the new government, and the labor movement has no time for complacency, while the people should also have no faith in the leaderships of the trade union federations, it said.

The statement concluded with the assurance that the KKE will do all it can in order for the labor, and more generally the popular movement, to gain momentum and become a factor of changes and reversals, and will defend the interests of the people at all cost and sacrifice.

Caption: File photo of Communist Party of Greece (KKE) headquarters in Perissos. (ANA-MPA)

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