A Parliament debate on Friday over a proposal to establish a committee of inquiry to probe political parties’ finances as well as bank loans to parties and mass media in the country generated the expected “fireworks” of charges, counter-charges and a direct clash between Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and main opposition New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
The televised debate briefly diverted attention from the fact that the government has ceased negotiations with institutional creditors, at least until this weekend’s IMF spring meeting in Washington D.C. Still pending is an agreement to achieve the first review of the Greek program (third bailout).
Tsipras, speaking from Parliament’s podium, charged that Mitsotakis is lining up behind the IMF’s unbending stance vis-a-vis the Greek program, while also promising that the review will conclude “without extra (tax, spending cuts) measures because that is what last summer’s agreement foresaw.”
The leftist Greek prime minister appeared optimistic that negotiations will successfully conclude and that economic growth will return to the recession-battered country.
“Your goal is to lead the country into the grips of credit asphyxiation … But your wish will not come true,” he said in directing his comments to Mitsotakis.
In reply, the center-right leader responded that “I am defending the country’s interests, as is ND… What you fail to comprehend is that the country’s interests are not the same are your interests. But don’t worry, your posthumous fame is guaranteed: you will go down in history as the prime minister of closed borders and banks.”
In continuing his attack on Tsipras and the leftist government, Mitsotakis said every day that passes with a SYRIZA government makes Greece resemble a “banana republic … as Mr. Tsakalotos’ friends say,” he bitingly said, in a reference to Greek FinMin Euclid Tsakalotos.
The mid-afternoon debate came as a latest opinion poll, commissioned by a small Athens-area television station, showed ND ahead of ruling SYRIZA by six percentage points.
The figures given by the firm Pulse, and presented by Action24, showed 31 percent of respondents in the opinion poll preferring ND, to SYRIZA’s 25 percent. The parties Golden Dawn (Chryssi Avgi), the Democratic Alliance (PASOK and other small center-left parties) was at 5.5 percent, as was the Communist Party.
Asked which party they will believe will be “first past the poll” in any upcoming general election regardless of their preference, respondents picked ND over SYRIZA by a margin of 18 percentage points, 50 to 32 percent.
