Word: pasok
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...June. Most politically explosive is the so-called Koskotas affair, Greece's biggest postwar banking scandal, which broke in October, just as Papandreou was returning to work after open-heart surgery. It has threatened to implicate two high-ranking government officials and has rocked his ruling Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK...
George Koskotas, 34, former chairman of the Bank of Crete and close associate of high-level PASOK officials, is accused of misusing more than $209 million in bank funds. A key question is how Koskotas, not long ago a middle- ranking bank employee, succeeded in building an empire that comprised the bank, five magazines, three newspapers, a radio station and a popular soccer football team. The public also wonders how Koskotas managed to flee Greece while he was under around-the-clock surveillance by an antiterrorist squad. Greeks blame the government for botching the investigation. For his part, Koskotas...
With the ballots counted, Papandreou's Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) had taken 45.8% of the 6.4 million votes cast and gained a clear majority of 161 seats in the 300-member Parliament. The Socialists finished well ahead of the center-right New Democracy party, led by Constantine Mitsotakis, which won 40.8% and 126 seats. The other loser was the Moscow-lining Communist Party (known by its Greek initials K.K.E.), which emerged with 9.9% of the vote and twelve seats. Exultant, Papandreou termed the result of the balloting "a victory for the people and a defeat for reaction...
...allies felt somewhat heartened by Papandreou's clear-cut success, it was because they had feared something worse, the emergence of a minority PASOK government, with the Communists holding the balance of parliamentary power. The Communists have frequently attacked Papandreou for failing to remove four U.S. military bases from Greece (the leases for the facilities, which are important for NATO's Mediterranean defense, come up for renewal in December 1988). Papandreou's triumph guaranteed that, as a French analyst put it, "there can be no Communist blackmail...
Papandreou had planned to back Caramanlis as a way of reassuring voters and thus ensuring his own victory in national elections scheduled for the fall. But opposition by militant members of PASOK persuaded Papandreou to change his mind at the last minute. Instead, the Prime Minister endorsed a moderate, Supreme Court Judge Christos Sartzetakis, for the post...