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In July, Greece had to vote in an express referendum for or against the new agreement with creditors. And although the majority of voters supported the 'no' vote, the government of Alexis Tsipras no less struck an agreement with the creditors. Two months later, in September, Greece is again facing an express ballot, this time for national assembly. As always, GRReporter will present opinions of various analysts, journalists and political scientists about the elections. Today we offer the commentary of journalist Takis Michas, published in protagon.gr

''If you expect that the Greek elections will trigger debates over the credit agreement or the economic disaster caused by the government in the last five months, the catastrophic capital controls or the destabilizing immigration policy – you are making a big mistake! None of these hot topics will be discussed.

Rather, the debate will be reduced to the undoubtedly hot issue of who is doing a better job of representing the Leninist-Stalinist tradition: Alexis Tsipras or Panagiotis Lafazanis. Within this framework, we can expect profound probes into whether the signing of the loan agreement was a 'strategic retreat' corresponding to what Lenin did with the NEP (New Economic Policy), as SYRIZA's leader claims. Or, on the contrary, it was a 'betrayal', as the leader of the Left platform has qualified it. We should also expect heart-breaking recriminations about who is responsible for 'undermining' the first government of the working class. And be accordingly delighted that we are once again witnessing how innovative and up-to-date the public debate in the southern Balkans is.

What is particularly fascinating is the complete impotence of the largest opposition party to influence, even in the smallest way, the public agenda. Whether New Democracy is still with us or not is something extremely hard to figure. The noises made by the party in most cases amount to adages of the worst kind, which simply boost Tsipras' popularity. And Meimarakis' populist pronouncements make one immediately switch over to another channel.

Not long ago, Makis Voridis said that New Democracy should become the 'party of ideas'. This sounds really up-to-date – just a few decades late. Alas, such a goal cannot be accomplished while the 'curse of karamanlism' is still hanging over the party. But the realm of ideas is precisely the one where the battle should be waged if New Democracy still wants to have a say in shaping society's political agenda.

This can only be achieved by reinventing the party as a decentralised pluralistic movement, which is capable of flooding society with a barrage of ideas from all directions on a daily basis. Currently, however, New Democracy is headed towards a dead certain loss – not with a bang but with a whimper, as the poet would say (a quote from T.S. Eliot). And the most tragic stroke is that the party leadership seems to believe that this should all be taken for granted!