Main opposition leader Evangelos Meimarakis, the primary rival to outgoing PM Alexis Tsipras in the coming snap election, unleashed a cascade of criticism against the latter in a televised address to members of his party’s Parliamentary group on Thursday morning.
“He told lies that cost us (Greece) much; he demonstrated a regime-like attitude and arrogance that blinded him (Tsipras),” were some of the veteran conservative politician’s barbs at Tsipras, a day after the latter said he and his radical leftists underestimated the power of “money and banks” in months-long negotiations with European creditors.
“He (Tsipras) proved lacking and tried to undermine us at the same time while he was asking for our support,” Meimarakis reminded, announcing that his party’s first rally comes on Tuesday.
While snap elections are certain no date has yet been fixed, with the last two Sundays of September appearing as the most prominent.
In citing the months of fruitless negotiations between the Tsipras government – then led by flamboyant former FinMin Yannnis Varoufakis – Meimarakis said Tsipras is merely trying to hoodwink voters again, “that it doesn’t matter that he brought the memorandum and signed it, but merely that negotiations lasted for many hours… Why did he sign the memorandum and then call elections?”
“The SYRIZA-AN.EL government cut the country’s legs at a time it was about to stand up. The country had escaped from Grexit and this government caused a major problem to the Greek family,” he continued.
An upbeat Meimarakis also reiterated that his party, Greece’s center-right mainstay since 1974, will emerge victorious, allowing the country to turn a page.
“We’re asking Greek citizens to trust ND again for the government’s helm.”
