One click closer to the congress clashes is PASOK, with the case of the “green” president of the GSEE, Giannis Panagopoulos, who is being investigated for misappropriating funds, casting a heavy shadow over the pre-congress climate.

Charilaou Trikoupi reacted immediately with the decision to suspend his party status until the case, which is being investigated by the relevant authorities, is fully resolved, but the event has caused a new wave of concern in PASOK about the potential bad effect on its popular image at this critical juncture.

At the same time, Kostas Skandalidis and Kostas Tsoukalas are preparing to make the first announcements on Monday about the result of PASOK’s two-sided enlargement operation, in a phase of intense mobility in the centre-left, where rearrangements are also being recorded due to the presence of the nascent party of Alexis Tsipras.

Mr. Skandialidis, as head of the Committee for Enlargement and Co-party and Mr. Tsoukalas, as press spokesman (he has also made contacts with SYRIZA executives), will announce the group of institutionalists (some sectoral members) who will “run” the process towards the Congress as well as the group of about 30 executives who will join the party at a joint press conference on Monday.

Faradouris at an event with Tsoukalas

The name of current MPs, such as Nina Kasimatis, is not included in the list, as it is rumoured that they will receive a call (as will probably Evangelos Apostolakis, Yota Poulou) to participate in the Congress to be held on March 27-29. What is certain is that tomorrow, Kostas Tsoukalas will speak with the now independent MEP, Nicolas Farantouris, at an event on red loans and the housing crisis. Nicolas Farantouris has several interlocutors within PASOK, and he may be invited to one of the tables of the “green” conference.

It is rumoured that calls to join the list to be announced on Monday have been made to former SYRIZA MP who was previously in PASOK, George Kyriakopoulos, former PASOK Youth Secretary and member of the SYRIZA Central Committee, Nikos Mademlis, former member of the SYRIZA Political Secretariat, Zoe Karkoulia (earlier she was an organisational member of Charilaou Trikoupis), and other middle-ranking executives around Greece. Besides, Kostas Skandalidis aim to create relevant nuclei of enlargement and solidarity throughout Greece and after the Congress, in the run-up to the elections.

According to reports, Skandalidis has also appealed to the “captains” of PASOK who had previously supported the expansion of the modernist bloc, as well as to academics in the field, such as former Tsipras minister Yannis Panousis.

Inside PASOK, however, turmoil continues to be caused by the low polls that have been going on for a year now, after the “instant” surge in the polls that was linked to the positive image PASOK projected from the internal party battle for the leadership election.

The next wave of opinion polls that will re-measure PASOK’s performance will show the tendency of rallying or dispersal that is taking shape on the way to the first important “station”, that of the Congress, and the next and decisive one, that of the elections.

Some say that Charilaou Trikoupis has not yet received an answer from Socrates Famellos and Alexis Charitsis as to whether their parties will come to the dialogue tables of the Congress, since they too continue to search for the ideal formula for possible understanding or cooperation on the next day, something they have tried in the parliamentary field.