Conservative New Democracy leader Vangelis Meimarakis continued to turn up the heat on his main rival and ex-PM Alexis Tsipras on Saturday, reminding that the “only new thing Tsipras brought was the new memorandum”.

Speaking Thessaloniki on the sidelines of an annual state-run trade show, the conservative leader ridiculed the notion of “new vs. old” that has emerged as the radical leftist party’s main campaign slogan in the brief election period before the snap Sept. 20 poll.

“The country cannot stand any more experiments, he’s (Tsipras) the prime minister of the 60-euros limit,” a barb at the capital controls imposed by the SYRIZA government as a bank run loomed in late June.

“Never before has no much damage been done in so short a time,” he added.

Tsipras, on his part, was on the opposite side of the country, in Kalamata, in the extreme south, were he told supporters he “gave the battle” in negotiations, and that regardless of the third memorandum he signed, “we’re not all the same”.

In referring to Tsipras the same day from the central city of Halkida, on Evia island, the head of the centrist Potami party bemoaned the fact, as he said, that “we were stuck with a prime minister who has never worked in his life. I say this with sadness. A country cannot continue to be governed by people that didn’t manage to earn even one day’s wages”.