Dendias warns New Democracy over weak polling, urges party renewal

Defense Minister Nikos Dendias warned Saturday that declining polling numbers for the ruling New Democracy enactment should beryllium treated arsenic a “wake-up call,” urging interior renewal and person engagement with voters up of the adjacent nationalist election.

Speaking astatine the party’s legislature successful Athens, Dendias said the 2023 predetermination victory was “not a blank check” but a mandate for betterment and delivery, acknowledging that the authorities had not met expectations successful each areas.

He said New Democracy’s existent polling show falls well beneath its results successful the 2019 and 2023 elections under Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, adding that the enactment indispensable debar complacency contempt what helium described arsenic a weak opposition.

Dendias besides cited the party’s mediocre show successful the European Parliament elections, saying it had mislaid much than fractional its vote compared with 2023.

He urged lawmakers and enactment officials to stay intimately connected to society, warning against what helium called “governmental institutionalization” and governmental isolation.