Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, is on the floor of Parliament, where he is speaking on the occasion of the budget vote.

“After 27 months, Mr. Tsipras, under the intense praise of his Central Committee, passed the Rubicon and decided to call for elections,” the prime minister commented at the beginning of his speech. “If there is one politician in the country today who would really benefit from the election, it would not be you, but me”, the PM said in response to Tsipras’s speech who called on the PM to step down and hold elections.

“During these months, there were opportunities to call elections, with the certainty that they would lead us to a better result than the result of July 2019. I mention, for example, the period May-June last year, when the government’s percentages were stratospheric. I did not do it. I did not do it, because we are not the same Mr. Tsipras. We are separated by an abyss of responsibility to the needs of the country. And to an approach that insists on seeing society in the light of expediency. You, Mr. Tsipras, were the one who in 2015, at the famous meeting of political leaders, assured the political leaders that you would not hold elections and announced them immediately afterward. And then you call me a liar. It’s the biggest joke ever heard in this room. It would be a great temptation to call elections today, just to see the panic in your eyes today.”