Thursday, May 03, 2012

Conservative leader, Antonis Samaras at election rally - Thessaloniki,Greece

Party faithful listen to speech by Conservative leader, Antonis Samaras at election rally - Thessaloniki, Greece

About 2000 of the New Democracy party faithful turned out to hear Antonis Samaras address a pre-election rally. Like PASOK the turnout was lacklustre, miniscule compared with the numbers previous party leaders were able to attract in the past.

So, the conservative, Havard educated leader, like his "left-wing" rival, Venizelos had to rely on the power of TV to make up for warm bodies present.

Samaras's speech, liberally peppered with ultra-nationalist demands was carefully honed to appeal to the local audience and while it was warmly received it was little more than a rehash of past, highly improbable promises and emotional calls to voters to give him an overall majority.

The problem with analysing such speeches is that they are less a unified set of ideas than a series of sound bites designed to create an emotional response.

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