Main opposition New Democracy (ND) leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Wednesday referred to an attempt at political "deception" by the Greek coalition government, speaking hours after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras unveiled an expected and previously announced package of welfare spending and very modest tax breaks for 2019, speaking from Parliament's podium.
Mitsotakis ridiculed Tsipras' slogan of a "first 100 days" since the end of the third, and last, bailout by institutional creditors for the country.
Tspiras spoke in Parliament, while Mitsotakis replied at a chamber of commerce event in Athens, with the latter calling the once firebrand leftist Greek politician and political rival "the long-serving and most dependable memorandum prime minister ... unfortunately, for Greece, he's now counting four years in office."
In stepping up his attack on both Tsipras and the poll-trailing leftist-rightist coalition government, and with a view to elections next year, the center-right ND leader said the latter have destroyed the middle class in Greece.
"The government wants to condemn society to impoverishment and dependence on welfare benefits," he said.
