The Use of Primaries by Political Parties: The Case of PASOK

Abstract

This paper examines the primary elections of the PanHellenic Socialist Party (PASOK) which were held on 5th and 12th of December 2021. Six candidates run for the position of the president in the first round and two runners-up in the second. As mentioned in the literature, there is a dearth of primary elections studies relative to general elections. The latter attract the attention of mass media for the obvious reason: they determine who or which party will govern the country or any other political entity. Nevertheless, there is a growing literature on primary studies. There are three aspects researched in this literature: (a) primary elections systems, (b) why a political party decides to hold primary elections and (c) the selection criteria of candidates and voters. This paper uses the existing literature to analyze some facets of the history of PASOK’s primary elections, emphasizing the most recent one of 2021. The most important conclusion emerging from this analysis is that ideology did play a role, particularly the candidates’ stance on their possible collaboration with the right-wing or the left-wing parties, which has been a controversial issue in the last decade. Another important conclusion is that PASOK voters opted for a younger candidate primarily because they wanted to get out of the current stalemate of PASOK’s low performance in general elections. As predicted from the literature, the competition between the six candidates resulted in a large turnout on the ballot date even though other factors played a positive role such as very good weather and a wide media coverage. Keywords: primaries, elections, voting, political parties, PASOK, Greece