Veteran is 8th PASOK candidate

Anna Diamantopoulou, a former minister and European Commissioner, officially threw her hat in the ring on Tuesday, becoming the eighth candidate for the leadership of the socialist PASOK party.

Diamantopoulou, 65, was prominent in the party at a time when it dominated the center-left and alternated power with conservative rival New Democracy, before the long-incubating financial crisis erupted on its watch and sent its popularity tumbling. Regularly winning 40% of the vote, the party went all the way down to 5% before a recent modest recovery – too modest for the taste of some longtime members.

It was this strong party that Diamantopoulou invoked on Tuesday in a video she uploaded on social media when she said “I ask for your support, for a strong, governing PASOK.” In the same video, she also warned against PASOK, currently the third largest party, seeking alliances from a position of weakness.

It is not certain whether this invocation of past glories will help her candidacy; Diamantopoulou has been out of electoral politics since 2012 and her chances will depend on mobilizing enough people to show up and vote in the leadership contest in October.

But party officials are thinking of finding ways to apply stronger criteria on voting eligibility, modifying the current rule whereby anyone who shows up and pays a negligible 2 euros in dues may vote as a party member or “friend.” Ostensibly, this is to prevent an unexpected takeover by a political novice, as happened with main opposition SYRIZA last year and Stefanos Kasselakis’ surprising win. But many claim that limiting the electorate would benefit those in control of the party machinery, namely incumbent leader Nikos Androulakis, who is also running.

Previous polls showed Androulakis, freshly elected Athens Mayor Haris Doukas and MP and former culture minister Pavlos Yeroulanos as the front-runners.

Diamantopoulou’s credentials as a reformist are well-established, especially after, as an education minister, she helped pass an education reform bill in 2011 with large bipartisan support. But the bill, which ruffled feathers in the academic and student union establishments, was diluted as soon as she left the office.

In the past decade or so, Diamantopoulou has been active through a think-tank of her own, Network for Reform in Greece and Europe.

Despite making sure to attack the present conservative government as a failure, Dimantopoulou is suspected by many of her socialist comrades as being a potential partner with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.