“Political housekeeping” and strategy for opposing the new government was on New Democracy (ND) leader Antonis Samaras’ mind Thursday afternoon, four days after handily losing a snap election that allowed Greece’s first-ever radical left party to govern.

The highlights of his televised comments were an excuse on why he was a ‘no show’ when his successor, Alexis Tsipras, arrived to take over the prime minister’s offices and a handful of names of high-profile ND deputies tapped to assume top party positions — but no reference to an issue swirling in ND circles this week, namely, whether he’ll open the process for an internal leadership election.

Touching on the fact that a customary handover ceremony between the outgoing Greek PM and the latter’s successor never materialized, Samaras merely noted that he had no information the day before on when, and if, Tsipras would arrive at the Maximos Mansion office on Monday. He qualified his statement by saying he had already phoned Tsipras on the night of the election to offer congratulations.

Turning to the new SYRIZA government, he promised to “defend the middle classes” in tandem with exercising an opposition that isn’t only negative.

He said he has spoken to EU Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, who hails from ND, about the latter being proposed as the new Greek president — without offering details – and even expressed a view that the conservative party “remained standing” despite following a pro-austerity policy over the past two and a half years.

“That dosen’t mean that mistakes weren’t made, however, the war we faced with rumours of unbelievable percentages (behind SYRIZA) affected our voters,” he said.

Finally, Samaras sharply attacked a bevy of recent SYRIZA government pledges to roll back privatizations and turn back labor market liberalization.