Main Opposition Coalition of the Left SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras on Sunday accused the coalition government of acting as though it doesn’t understand the humanitarian, social and national disaster it is causing. The opposition leader was in Ioannina, north-western Greece, and said that his party would use “democratic weapons” against the government and said SYRIZA would not co-sign the government’s agreement with the troika of international creditor’s from the European Commission (EC), European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In response to Mr. Tsipras’ comments, Government Spokeswoman Sofia Voultepsi said: “He scares the markets and investors by regurgitating a nonexistent ‘program’, blackmailing with early elections, undermining democracy and stability, doing all he can to immerse our country into the deepest darkness of anarcy and chaos.”

In an interview with “Ethnos” newspaper on Sunday, conservative New Democracy Prime Minister Antonis Samaras sent a strong message to SYRIZA about “the day after”. “We must put a conclusive end to political uncertainty by electing a president of the Republic within the next three months. Because if we do not, this will mean political uncertainty and extensive lack of governance, finally resulting in an obligatory return to memorandums with more difficult positions. This would be catastrophic for the country,” he said, calling for a political agreement to contribute to stability and stating that SYRIZA “cannot drag the country to early election on the occasion of the presidential elections, leading the way to instability now that we are exiting the crisis permanently.”

The press office of SYRIZA immediately responded to this article noting that it “testifies to the fear of the government” in facing a collapse. The party said that reading between the lines, the interview gave an “assurance towards the country’s creditors that the memorandum program will be continued unswervingly.” “We are not surprised neither that the statement ‘exit from the memorandum’ gave its place to ‘the continuation of the reforms’, nor by the identification of ‘political stability’ as ‘stability’ of the government,” said the statement. “The only thing for which the Prime Minister is right is that the ‘deepest darkness’ comes just before dawn with light coming soon through a fresh popular mandate to a government willing to negotiate in favor of the interest of the country. There is no way that SYRIZA will consent to the crime of the memorandum.”