Below are the highlights from a three-hour and mostly tepid debate by the seven political leaders with parties represented in the outgoing Parliament (sans Golden Dawn).
The politicians were: Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) leader Alexis Tsipras; Conservative New Democracy (ND) leader Evangelos Meimarakis; Socialist PASOK leader Fofi Gennimata; Centrist Potami (River) party leader Stavros Theodorakis;
Communist Party (KKE) leader Dimitris Koutsoumbas; right-wing anti-austerity Independent Greeks (ANEL) leader Panos Kammenos, and Panagiotis Lafazanis, the head of the far-left Popular Unity party, the breakaway anti-memorandum bloc of SYRIZA.
The ultra-nationalist Golden Dawn party leader Nikos Mihaloliakos will not participate due to his ongoing prosecution related to charges of establishing and heading up a criminal organization.
The most remembered segment was when recently resigned prime minister Tsipras was asked why he urged citizens not to pay unpopular property tax, prior to his winning the election and when he was in the opposition.
His explanation was this: “The property (where he resided) wasn’t mine, it (call for tax evasion) was an act of resistance when the conditions existed.”
Economy and the third … memorandum
Tsipras: We managed to stabilize the economy with this agreement (memorandum).
Tsipras: It is clear that in this battle we did not manage to achieve a portion of our commitments, but the battle continues.
Tsipras: Referred to a battle where there were choices that provided an impetus in the beginning and which “boosted the people’s morale”, but in the course there were exaggerations and mistakes, but they were corrected.
Meimarakis on Tsipras: In January when we handed over (the country’s reins) the economy was better than it is now.
Meimarakis: Charged that Tsipras lied to the citizens and violently interrupted the Samaras government’s tenure
Meimarakis: Vote ND to bring investments
Gennimata: They (anti-memorandum forces) called us traitors and collaborators. No one can claim, however, that we put our political interests above those of our country.
Gennimata: If there was a ‘Gold Raspberry’ for the economy, Tsipras would have won it.
Kammenos: Out greatest failure was that we retained the ENFIA (property) tax. The rightist-populist leader was Tsipras’ coalition partner in the seven-month government that recently resigned. At one point he wanted to build a NATO base on the isle of Karpathos, on Wednesday he referred to making the Aegean into “Europe Caribbean”. He wasn’t asked if Lesvos will be included in his vision.
Koutsoumbas: Proposal by Popular Unity party won’t lead to impasse, it will lead to the imposition of new and harsher measures for a greater period of time.
Lafazanis: Extols his manifesto in favor of the drachma (!). The national currency is not a catastrophe. It will boost exports and employment.
Theodorakis: Potami’s decision to support memorandum was a patriotic act, in order to avoid a major national disaster.
Lafazanis: We want a public sector that will not be a political fiefdom, but such a state cannot be created with memorandums … we want a socialist state that is not a partisan fiefdom
Kammenos: Took complete “ownership” of the third memorandum (after emerging as a political leader in his own right on the coat tails of virulent and often offensive opposition to the memorandum and ad hominem attacks on rival politicians)
Koutsoumbas: In detailing his unconstructed communist party’s ideology, he said KKE was not referring to a “state sector” but a “nationalized society” (!)… “a state where the people will be in power and control the state sector”.
Gennimata: Mostly covered previous PASOK leader George Papandreou for the party’s debts.
Education & health
Lafazanis on education sector: There’s a need for a revolution in the education sector, as well as in healthcare
Meimarakis on 23-percent VAT tax slapped by leftist party on education: When SYRIZA hears about the private sector it runs to tax it; it hates the private sector
Tsipras’ latest pledge for hated property tax: It will be abolished and replaced. No answer as to when… He adds: We did not surrender, we made a compromise.
Tsipras: Fat that bonus for lower-income pensioners was abolished a … success of negotiations with creditors.
Meimarakis: If the Greek people give me the mandate, I will go to the president and ask for a mandate to form a government. I wan cooperation, as opposed to Tsipras.
Meimarakis: Memorandum measures are the only ones that Tsipras brought in his government’s seven months in power.
The debate questions turn to the major ongoing issue of the refugee crisis and the accompanying flows of irregular migrants taking advantage of the exodus of Syrians towards Europe.
Gennimata on migrant / refugee crisis: Greece cannot deal by itself with the problem
Tsipras on foreign policy: Biggest ‘success’ of his government was the fact that a crisis was avoided when Turkey unilaterally declared a … firing range that included the Greek island of Limnos!
Tsipras appears peeved and criticizes other parties, claiming populism and hypocrisy over the migrant crisis.
Tsipras: We were in Russia and China to formulate cooperation, not to ask for money. I never went to ask for money from Russia.
Tsipras on migrant crisis: You cannot blame on one government the entire migrant issue when the ND government did nothing.
Tsipras: Says his government had the foresight to create a ministry for migration policy
Meimarakis: “Let’s not lose some little island because Tsipras believes we don’t have sea borders. We do, and he should guard them,” his response to a quip by the latter saying there are no sea borders.
Lafazanis: Europe is responsible for migrant problem … it was created by imperialistic wars.
Asked why the refugees (and tens of thousands of other third country nationals) don’t head for … Russia, but instead for Germany, the pro-Russian Lafazanis said: “where to you want them to go, Africa?
Lafazanis: We didn’t like the Assad regime and we like the jihadists?
Theodorakis: “Yes” to refugees, “no” to every migrant in Greece.
Numerous bomb threats, by the way, are phoned in to the state broadcaster’s studios, as the moderator tells television viewers.
Kammenos, in his trademark bombastic style: Europe, through Germany, threatened us with the refugees (issue)
Kammenos, a licensed yacht skipper and owner, also had the … solution: more vessels to take refugees off the islands and registering them while sailing.
Foreign policy & defence
Gennimata: (Former PM George) Papandreou bore the weight in a difficult moment for Greece.
Kammenos: Promised … pay hikes to military NCOs … 11 days before the election.
Koutsoumbas, the communist leader, in a historic, for his party comment: It’s a delusion to say Russia will finance Greece, without harsh measures. Russia, today, is a major capitalistic power.”
Theodorakis: We must demand (from Germany) the repayment of occupation loan, but not appear as the poor relative that protests over the past.
Lafazanis: Is it a bad thing for Greece to seek funding from Russia, China, India or Brazil?”
Meimarakis: Tsipras left us without any allies. He needs to learn to guard the sea borders.
Political cooperation
Meimarakis to Tsipras: We need a minimum program, to cooperate in order to move ahead. “If you have time tomorrow, I can come by your headquarters and talk”
Tsipras: I am very happy that this debate is taking place at an open ERT, a reference to the national broadcaster
Meimarakis: Tsipras equals perpetual elections; Tsipras means instability, uncertainty; until the period heading to the elections Tsipras will (again) become an anti-memorandum advocate
Gennimata: Tsipras won’t pass through social democratic (movement) even as a stowaway.
Meimarakis on Kammenos: He’s going mad because he appears not entering Parliament
Meimarakis: Tsipras added debts of 90 billion euros in seven months, 25 billion alone due to the decision for the referendum
Tsipras on broadcasting licenses: An end must come to the illegality and injustice.
The six members representing the media had their own meeting at the Greek state radio and TV (ERT) network studio on Tuesday.
Last segment of debate
Gennimata: Country needs a four-year government.
Theodorakis: Bankrupt parties are ND, PASOK and SYRIZA. Potami owes nothing, and to no one.
Lafazanis: We reached the point of not looking out for the country’s interests but who of the two, Tsipras or Meimarakis, will better serve the interests of the eurozone.
Theodorakis: Work, justice, education, that is the grand idea that Potami wants.
Theodorakis: After the “first time left”, the people can now believe in “the first time serious”.
Final comments
Tsipras: It’s time to do away with the regime of corruption and vested interests, it’s up to us to do away with the old, not to allow Greece to regress.
Tsipras: On Jan. 25 we began a difficult effort to change Greece. We went against the powerful and were able to open new roads. We told the people the truth.
Meimarakis: I am on the pavement, I know how much the Greek citizen is suffering …. I look citizens in the eye and I ask them to go to the ballot box and consider that we’ve paid dearly for ‘punishment votes’ and abstention.
Lafazanis: Memorandum mean a sell-off of public assets, it mean national subjugation, it mean a junta of the troika…
