Olympics Prepares for New Greek Government

Prospects for the 2004 Athens Games have entered a new phase of uncertainty after weekend elections in Greece that ensured a government turnover but held the promise of a more prominent role for Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, the steely executive who brought Greece the Games, experts said Monday.

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge on Monday congratulated Greece’s new prime minister, U.S.-educated Costas Karamanlis, but pointedly noted in a statement that both of Greece’s major political parties, Karamanlis’ conservative New Democracy Party and the long-ruling PASOK Socialists, had promised that preparations for the Games “would not be negatively affected by the outcome of the elections.”

Rogge also set a Saturday meeting with Karamanlis in Athens and said, “We now look forward to the very positive next steps for the Games.”

IPASOK had controlled the Greek government for all but four of the last 23 years; today, just 157 days before the Aug. 13 start of the Games, it leaves office with dozens of venues and other construction projects not yet done.

Meantime, a far-reaching Games-related security training exercise -- with Greek and U.S. forces -- begins this week. Greece has budgeted 650 million euros, about $820 million, for Games security -- more than three times the figure spent on security for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

“All of us, working together, will give our best to have the best and safest Olympics ever held,” Karamanlis, 47, who earned master’s and doctorate degrees at Tufts University, said in his victory speech.

Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, 48, met Sunday with Karamanlis. According to widespread speculation in the Greek press, she could be in line for the post of culture minister or for a new government position akin to Olympics minister.

As a member of New Democracy, she served from 1989-90 in the Greek parliament. She led the bid that in 1997 won Athens the 2004 Games; she then left the Olympic scene but was called back in 2000 to head the Athens 2004 organizing committee.

The Greeks essentially lost those first three years to delay. The IOC today credits her with restoring organization and credibility to the Athens 2004 committee.

Reached Monday by phone and asked if she was due to add a government ministry to her portfolio, Angelopoulos-Daskalaki declined to comment. A new cabinet is due to be announced as soon as today. The new government will be sworn in Wednesday.

In Greece, the government -- not Athens 2004 -- is responsible for oversight of the dozens of Games-related construction projects. In meetings with the IOC in late February in Athens, the government reported that 24 of 39 projects had not been finished, including a steel-laced roof over Olympic Stadium that was key to the thematic stagecraft of the opening ceremony.

The culture minister, Evangelos Venizelos, and the general secretary for the Games, Costas Cartalis, have both vowed that the construction would be finished on time.

Venizelos is almost certain to lose his post. He said recently, however, that he was “always at the disposal of the Greek government.”

To lose Cartalis, however, would perhaps prove more unsettling, Olympic insiders said. He has proved a calm and steadying influence; while coordinating various government agencies, he has cajoled construction crews to within sight of the finish line, while acknowledging repeatedly that the government is in a race against time.

To keep him, however, requires a delicate job of Greek political finesse -- for Cartalis was appointed by the outgoing government.

PASOK’s candidate for prime minister, George Papandreou, said after the election results had come in that the party remained committed to the Games, which “will strengthen the effort for the maintenance of the country’s high prestige on the international scene, and its developmental and economic progress.”