Zoe Konstantopoulou is the new rising star in Greek politics, having secured second place in popularity within a month, following the governing New Democracy party.
Greece has been in political turmoil since the February 28 mass rally when hundreds of thousands of Greeks protested nationwide and abroad demanding accountability and justice for the death of 57 (mostly young) people who were killed in the Tempi railway disaster on February 28, 2023.
The number of disgruntled citizens and the no-confidence motion for the Kyriakos Mitsotakis government that followed the rally shook the ruling party, forcing a rushed cabinet reshuffle.
The opinion polls that followed showed a shake-up in Greek politics that did not only affect the government but the opposition as well. When one expected that the main opposition PASOK would take advantage of the New Democracy decline in polls, it was a minor party that climbed high, taking second place with a two-digit percentage.
The party is Plefsi Eleftherias (Freedom Course) led by Zoe Konstantopoulou. She may not be new to Greek politics as she was a parliament member with Syriza from May 2012 to August 2015 and then served as Speaker of the Hellenic Parliament from February 2015 to October 2015 during the Syriza administration.
Konstantopoulou, 48, is a lawyer and daughter of Nikos Konstantopoulos, founder and president of Synaspismos (Coalition of the Left, of Movements and Ecology) from December 1993 until December 2004. The leftist party was the precursor of Syriza. Zoe Konstantopoulou entered Greek politics when she was elected with Syriza. Her hard leftist stance and her belief that Greece should be out of the European Union led to a collision with then-Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras who had signed an austere bailout program, so she left the party.
She founded Pleusi Eleftherias in April 2016, but her new party did not fare well in the 2019 national election as she failed to pass the 3 percent of the total vote required for entering the parliament. However, with 1.47 percent of the vote and more than 80,000 voters, she laid the foundation for a party that would compete four years later.
Her numbers doubled in the May 2023 election: 170,424 votes and 2.89 percent. However, the fragmentation of Syriza following Tsipras’ resignation from party president gave Pleusi Eleftherias a ticket to the plenary in the second ballot in June (3.17 percent but with about 5,000 votes less.)
In the summer 2023 European Parliament election, Konstantopoulou’s party failed to make a difference from the previous general election getting 3.4 percent of the vote, narrowly passing the electoral threshold for the second time, as 135,310 citizens showed their preference for Pleusi Eleftherias.
Following Pulse pollsters data in 2024, voter preference gave Pleusi Eleftherias 5 percentage points in September, 4 percent in October and November, and again 5 percent in the last month of 2024. These ups and downs continued until recently. Now opinion polls show that Greeks elevated her party to double digits giving her the second place in voters’ preference.
In the most recent poll conducted by Interview and published on Wednesday, New Democracy leads with a meager 22.2 percent and Plefsi Eleftherias comes second with 12.7 percent. The current main opposition in parliament, the socialist PASOK, comes third with 11 percent. In fourth place, the Greek Orthodox right-wing party Elliniki Lysi (Greek Solution) approaches the two-digit mark (9.9 percent) followed by the Greek Communist Party (KKE) with 8.6 percent.
The once-powerful Syriza comes sixth with 5.6 percent, followed by the right-wing Foni Logikis (Voice of Reason) with 3.7 percent. Left-wing Mera 25 (DiEM25) is in eighth place (3.5 percent). Right-wing Niki comes ninth (3 percent) along with Stefanos Kasselakis’ Democracy Movement, also at 3 percent. Finally, Nea Aristera, the first Syriza offshoot got only 2 percent.
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Zoe Konstantopoulou’s popularity skyrocketed almost overnight due to her accusatory discourse and aggressive rhetoric against the government regarding the Tempi railway disaster. Protests culminated with nationwide mass demonstrations on February 28, when hundreds of thousands of Greeks both domestically and internationally demanded accountability and justice. Moreover, they called for the removal of the current New Democracy administration and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, accusing them of a blatant cover-up.
Konstantopoulou rode that wave of discontent with remarkable dedication and a polemical attitude. First of all, she is the lawyer for two of the families who lost loved ones in the railway accident and spearheaded the movement of grieving parents and family members in a relentless demand for justice. Of all the opposition MPs, Konstantopoulou has been the most persistent and her arguments sound the most valid.
In this ongoing change in social processes, the political landscape is changing, too. This, combined with the government’s decay and the opposition’s inability to form a dynamic alternative proposal for power, constitutes the fertile ground for the so-called anti-systemic forces to “flare up” in the opinion polls.
Pleusi Eleftherias is now considered a true anti-systemic party and has gained great momentum. It is the party that benefited the most from the parliamentary battle of the no-confidence motion than the other parties earlier in March.
Political analysts and public opinion researchers attempt to interpret this phenomenon, converging on the view that the Tempi are emerging as a catalyst for developments and are shaping the fertile ground for new trends and opportunities to emerge for political parties that position themselves with the dominant narrative of the tragedy that haunts the political system and overturns the government’s certainty of dominance.
Due to her involvement as a lawyer in the Tempi case and her close relationship with Maria Karystianou, the president of Pleusi Eleftherias managed to see the prospect faster than other political rivals. She has penetrated broader audiences, from the undecided voters to her former companions of the fragmented Syriza, even to the disappointed conservative voters.
Konstantopoulou’s motto of “we don’t look left or right; we look forward” which she launched during the 2023 pre-election campaign, promoted a profile of questioning everything in the name of justice for all “with democracy, freedom, prosperity, equality, dignity”, fighting for “a life with content” and “forming emancipated, independent, self-reliant societies, capable of repelling their plans of coercion, enslavement, and exploitation”.
Now Konstantopoulou claims to be the voice of indignant citizens demanding immediate punishment of the guilty. Since the no-confidence motion, she has displayed a combative attitude in parliament, using harsh language against the majority of MPs and not hesitating to clash with them. Her populist stance enhances her political assets.
In a demonstration of her being “one of the people”, on the March 25 military parade in Larissa she appeared with a bright red overcoat and refused to sit on the platform with the officials but stayed on the street with the people, as she told reporters later.
Konstantopoulou has received severe criticism from New Democracy ministers and MPs. She has been accused of capitalizing on the Tempi tragedy for political gain. Opposition parties often blame such national tragedies on the party in power. The Plefsi Eleftherias leader turned that against her opponent, accusing them of bullying and sexism.
Another criticism she received was that she overstepped her authority when she was House Speaker in the first months of the Syriza administration by delaying the vote on crucial decisions for the 2015 bailout program. Also, her insistence at the time that Greece should default, leave the EU and the eurozone and return to the drachma, considered by many an immature opinion showing a lack of knowledge of the international economy and monetary issues.
Now the drachma issue has returned, as she mentioned in an interview. Yet in the most recent television interview her reply to the question if she is in favor of returning to the old national currency, she replied using diplomatic language: “We have clearly said that we don’t believe in currency dogmatism. I believe in democracy. If you ask me, ‘democracy or the euro’, I will say democracy. If you ask me ‘justice or the euro’, I will say justice. We are not defenders of any currency.”
It was a turbulent time for Greek politics then, and it remains so now. The Greek parliament seems as dangerously fragmented as it was in 2015. No opposition party can propose a realistic program for the future. Nine parties compete for the votes of the disgruntled, but the disgruntled remain unconvinced.
In the poll mentioned earlier, 53 percent of respondents want an early election. However, 40.6 percent of respondents believe that none of the opposition parties has a governance program. In other words, the majority believe that the parties have an opposition narrative but not an alternative governance one. Only PASOK could have an alternative governance program, as 18.1 percent of respondents believe.
Ironically, in the poll question, ‘Which political leader do you trust most to govern the country?’ Nea Dimokratia leader and current Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis received 30.5 percent. In second place, 22.6 percent of participants answered “No one.” Zoe Konstantopoulou came third, with 11.5 percent of respondents trusting her to run the country.
