Prime Minister Antonis Samaras focused on the ills of the main opposition Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) during his speech at the city of Larisa, in Central Greece, on Saturday night. He said that the SYRIZA party was leading the country to bankruptcy, to a credit crunch and eventually out of Europe.

Mr. Samaras said he was optimistic regarding the upcoming general elections, noting that SYRIZA’s lead in the polls had narrowed.

“We are starting a path of victory from Larisa,” he said. “SYRIZA’s wind of victory is thinning, the climate is turning. The Greek people voted for us two and a half years ago in order to pull Greece out of the crisis. Two and a half years ago few people believed it. In two and a half years Greece has undergone the greatest ‘tidying up’: It has no deficits, and was about to exit the crisis, but they didn’t let us. A minority of lawmakers dragged the country to elections that people didn’t want.”

He noted that SYRIZA is afraid the country is finishing with the bailouts and that every year will be better than the previous one. “It was wrong to lead us to elections at a time when the county is recovering. This is why people will punish them for ignoring this,” he added.

Mr. Samaras pointed to the recklessness of SYRIZA by pointing to the markets’ reaction. “The international press and international bodies tell them every day,” he said.

He said that he is not taking part in scare-mongering as SYRIZA claims. “The institutional decisions taken in their conferences include not paying interest rates and not meeting debt payments, but these decisions will lead to bankruptcy. Even worse, they’re also saying they will resort to forced lending,” said Mr. Samaras.

He said that EU funds benchmarked for farmers worth 43.5 billion euros are being jeopardized by SYRIZA, noting that the farmers and agricultural sector would be the first to lose.