The ex-McKinsey consultant tipped to be next Greek PM

5/12/2018

By Kerin Hope in Athens

Poll favourite Kyriakos Mitsotakis seeks to boost economy with reforms

Months before Greece’s next elections, Kyriakos Mitsotakis — the favourite to become prime minister — is already in campaign mode.

He and his shadow cabinet are out on the stump each weekend, fired up by a recent opinion poll giving Mr Mitsotakis’s centre-right New Democracy party a record 16-point lead over the ruling leftwing Syriza party of prime minister Alexis Tsipras.

Speaking to teachers and university professors at an interactive museum in a rundown district of Athens last month, his subject was Greece’s ailing education system.

“We cannot achieve strong growth rates unless we invest in our human capital,” said Mr Mitsotakis — educated at Harvard and Stanford universities — as he and Niki Kerameos, the shadow education minister, outlined plans for better IT teaching, university courses taught in English and a strict timetable for completing degrees.

If all goes well, Mr Mitsotakis might soon be in a position to try to make good on those plans. A win by the margin predicted by the latest polls would ensure an outright parliamentary majority for his conservatives in the election due to be held by October 2019.

Greece has posed the EU one of its thorniest recent problems, emerging from a third, €86bn bailout only in August. Mr Mitsotakis argues the country needs growth-oriented reforms following three years of fiscal tightening under Mr Tsipras and Syriza.

In an interview, he bluntly criticised Greece’s economic performance and said the trio of EU and IMF bailouts failed in their “main objective” of ensuring the country could once again borrow on international capital markets.

“If you look at where we are compared with 10 years ago [when the crisis erupted] we have made progress on many fronts but a lot of the fundamental problems associated with the structure of the economy are still there,” said Mr Mitsotakis. He said his party could restore confidence in the economy and use its pro-market image to attract fresh investment while maintaining the high budget surpluses agreed with the EU.

Mr Mitsotakis has long dreamt that such a moment could be at hand. The 50-year-old is a scion of one of Greece’s most political families: son of a prime minister, his older sister Dora served as foreign minister while his nephew Costas, a regional governor, will be running for mayor of Athens.

Such a background opens the former McKinsey consultant to the charge that he is privileged and remote — something he is keen to try to deflect by sharing the campaign platform with aspiring cabinet ministers like Ms Kerameos, along with candidates for a clutch of local and EU elections next year. “He wants to avoid the elitist tag,” one aide said.

Mr Mitsotakis played a minor role during the country’s crisis, serving as civil service minister in a ND-led coalition government implementing the second bailout. His brief from international creditors was to eliminate 15,000 public sector jobs — a task cut short by the government’s fall in January 2015, triggering a snap election won by Syriza.

Today Greece’s crisis is officially over, but its fragile banks carry exceptionally high levels of non-performing debt. Unemployment is almost 20 per cent.

Mr Mitsotakis insisted the government must do much more to restore market confidence .

“It’s not just a question of consolidating fiscal policy because, if anything, fiscal policy has been too tight. It is also a question of really believing in implementing structural reforms, making Greece more competitive, changing the overall business climate, bringing in significant amounts of foreign investment but also mobilising domestic investment,” he said.

Reviving stalled privatisation projects would help, starting with a €6bn scheme to redevelop Hellenikon, the coastal site of the former Athens international airport, as a leisure, business and residential centre. Greek and Gulf investors are committed to the project but the start of infrastructure work has been delayed for almost two years.

Mr Mitsotakis also plans to revive a $1bn gold mine project by Canada’s Eldorado Gold at Skouries in northern Greece. The company pulled out last year following a dispute over permits.

“People will see there is an immediate and systematic purpose to unlock some large-scale investment projects, starting with Hellenikon which is enormously important but extending to others, for example Skouries,” he said.

If he becomes prime minister, Mr Mitsotakis said he would put a stop to diaploki [entanglement], a tradition of cosy relationships between senior politicians and so-called “oligarchs”, wealthy businessmen who acquire media outlets and football clubs as a tool for winning favours.

“I’d make it very clear to the business community, the law is the law and things are going to change,” he said. “I’d tell them, I’m going to make your lives easier, I’m going to lower taxes, I’ll help you get liquidity but you have to pay your taxes, invest in this country and not expect to get preferential treatment by buying a television station.”

Mr Mitsotakis and his team have work ahead to keep up the momentum. Mr Tsipras is fighting back with tried and tested vote-getting tactics, announcing tens of thousands of public sector appointments ahead of the vote, along with cash handouts for poorer Greeks. The premier’s streetwise swagger, which helped propel him to power, still appeals to many voters.

There is also the question of whether a Mitsotakis government could deliver on its promises more effectively than previous centre-right governments.

“His intentions are admirable but he’d be up against formidable opposition — not just entrenched business practices but the different interest groups that flourish in the public sector,” said Costas Iordanides, a veteran political commentator.

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