The main opposition conservative New Democracy Political Committee met at midday on Sunday to discuss a number of issues such as the party’s poor performance at the January 25 elections that marked a victory for the Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA). Former prime minister Antonis Samaras addressed the meeting. “Forty days after the elections, and our opponents are admitting to their lies,” he said.

Samaras said that Varoufakis comments regarding a referendum if EU partners don’t agree to Greek proposals is the same “fatal mistake” that socialist PASOK leader George Papandreou had made. “The government is playing with a Grexit to fling responsibility off themselves and blame the people,” he said in his opening speech. He said that the referendum is possible if Brussels does not agree to the Greek government’s proposals.

Samaras noted that the SYRIZA party has already been forced to agree, with its signature on the Eurogroup agreement on February 20, that the country had made significant progress with the ND-PASOK coalition even though this has not been admitted within Greece.

“The renamed the troika as ‘institutions’ and are baptizing meat is fish, and this is something that their own (deputies) have admitted to, such as (MEP) Manolis Glezos and (Parliamentary Speaker) Zoi Konstandopoulou,” said Samaras.

The conservative leader spared no punches when refering to Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis who he described as “ludicrous”, adding that his proposals to combat tax evasion have only prompted “laughter and irony.” “They fell short of inviting Inspector Clouseau to help out,” he said.

“We don’t want SYRIZA to leave as a victim of change” he said at another point and maintained that the government is guilty of “duping the Greek nation.”

SYRIZA is not the only worry that Samaras has to deal with as there has been internal conflict within the party following the ND’s electoral defeat. On Thursday, a group of deputies asked for a party conference, something that the party leader denied.Amongst those who are calling for an extraordinary conference are deputies Dora Bakoyannis and Nikos Dendias. The latter, speaking to private MEGA TV on Sunday said, “We have just faced the worst defeat in our (party) history. If we don’t have a conference now, when will we hold one?” Asked if the matter of a change of leadership should be brought up, Dendias said that this could only be examined at a party conference that looks at such issues internally. “If there is something that we can be taught from the Left, then that would be to discuss things,” he said.