Today, government spokesman Evangelos Andonaros announced the long awaited reconstruction of the Greek government, which according to political analyzers is the last chance for Kostas Karamanlis’ government to survive. The constantly falling rating of the ones in power is taking them closer to new elections and the only way for this to change seems to be the reconstruction. More and more politicians within New Democracy are starting to think of what the party will look like after the Karamanlis era and current foreign Minister Dora Bakoyanni is not hiding her ambitions to become the new Prime Minister.

In such a situation, the announced changes in the cabinet seem a bit too late or at least this is what the surveys of the public opinion show. According to them, more and more Greeks are not willing to change their attitude towards the ruling party even after the changes. The media characterizes those changes as ones with limited surprises. One of the most important events is definitely the withdrawal of the Finance Minister Giorgios Alogoskoufis from the government, who for more than 10 years has been one of the closest people to the Greek Prime Minister. His place in the Ministry of finance and State Economy is taken by Yannis Papatanasiou.

The second event in announced changes is the appointment of Andonis Samaras for Minister of Culture. As a new face in the cabinet, he is definitely living through his own political spring. Andonis Samaras, the New Democracy dissident, the main perpetrator of the fall of Konstantinos Mitzotakis’ government in the beginning of the 90’s, and the creator of the no more existing Political Spring is a very interesting move from Karamanlis to neutralize the influence of the Mitzotakis family in the party circles. Samaras promises to add dynamics in the intensive Greek political life.

The rest of the governmental changes are more or less cosmetic. The Minister of Transportation is taking over the Ministry of Development. Until now he has behind his back the privatizing of OTE and one very promising start for the airline company “Olympic.” The Minister of Tourism Aris Spiliotopoulos is taking over the boiling barrel of the Education Ministry and the former Minister of Education Evripidis Stilianidis is taking over the Ministry of Transportation and Telecommunication. The key Ministers who are keeping their places are: Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyanni, Internal Affairs Minister Prokopsis Pavlopoulos, and Minister of Defense Evangelos Meimarakis.

The new members of the government will be sworn in front of the president of Greece tomorrow at 11:00am and at 12:00pm the first session of the new cabinet will take place.