Main opposition New Democracy (ND) leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Sunday repeated his call for snap elections in the country, exactly one year after the last general election brought forth a coalition government dominated by leftist SYRIZA in league with small rightist-populist party as its junior partner.
Mitsotakis spoke a day after a customary address on the sidelines of an annual trade fair in the northern city of Thessaloniki, this time appearing in yet another annual “custom” at the same venue, namely, a nationally televised press conference.
“We believe this government is dangerous, not just for the economy, but because it is undermining democratic institutions,” he said in response to one of 40 questions by reporters in attendance, and over the course of more than two hours.
“Elections do have a cost, but the presence of this government is even more costly,” he said.
As expected, the main opposition leader was repeatedly asked to clarify or embellish on his statements from the previous evening, which came in the form of a speech in front of a mostly partisan audience.
He defended his plan for tax breaks and tax cuts, pointing to specific spending cuts and "housekeeping" in the public sector as offsetting every single euro reduced from lower taxes.
Among others, Mitsotakis, who has brandished a pro-reform and liberal agenda while a minister and now as the president of center-right New Democracy, repeated that his pledges do not entail the firing of civil servants in the country.
The issue is sensitive in the east Mediterranean country of 11 million, given that a very large number of wage-earners within the active population are employed in the public sector, utilities and enterprises controlled or owned by the state.
He nevertheless repeated that he will insist on an evaluation of employees, departments and entire entities belonging to the state sector.
Moreover, in answer to a bevy of questions on a controversial recent auction for national television broadcast licenses, Mitsotakis was scathing, saying “we’ve now passed from hay to pasture lands.”
The questions were asked by reporters from stations that failed to win one of four such licenses, with the winning bids made by two current station owners, as well as two newcomers.
One of the newcomers, in fact, was the object of the “pasture land” quip, given that the businessman behind the winning bid, construction executive Yannis Kalogritsas, presented more-or-less worthless pasture land on a remote part of an Ionian island as collateral to receive a letter of guarantee from a non-systemic Greek bank.
The letter of guarantee was necessary in order to participate in the closed-door electronic auction for the licenses. Just as noteworthy is the fact that the pasture land, on the island of Ithaca, was bestowed to Kalogritsas from another man, and using a power of attorney contract signed by a woman deceased for years.
The “hay” in Mitsotakis’ response was just as derisive – and indicative of the sour atmosphere in Greek politics -- given that an extreme brand of political criticism in the country against leftist SYRIZA often equates its grassroots supporters with sheep.
He again promised, as he did on Saturday, to revoke the current law, which allows only four nationwide television broadcast licenses. He also promised to return the entire matter to a constitutionally mandated independent broadcast watchdog authority, and to work towards pluralism and transparency in the television sector.
Asked by a reporter from a radio station affiliated with ruling SYRIZA party over a recent incident in a near Thessaloniki suburb (Oreokastro) where the local PTA voiced opposition to the attendance of children of Mideast refugees in classes without health checks, Mitsotakis differentiated his position from that of the mayor of the specific township, who in the past was elected with ND’s support.
“I will not allow racist and xenophobic voices in New Democracy,” Mitsotakis said.
He emphasized, however, in referring to the flow of Mideast war refugees and other third country nationals headed for Greece, that the current SYRIZA government failed to honor its commitment to separate true refugees from “economic migrants… with closed pre-deportation centers for the latter, as well as the distribution of refugees proportionately throughout the country; none of these things happened.”
Additionally, he did not back away from his promise to “clean up Exarchia” within a month of assuming power.
He was referring to a central Athens district, literally between the Athens polytechnic and Athens university administration building, which has long been known as the Greek capital’s most “bohemian” district. The urban area’s “darker face”, however, is sporadic street violence by gangs of self-styled anarchist youth and anti-state activists.
In response to questions touching more on the economy, Mitsotakis said he is in favor of the existence of non-systemic banks, although in the case of Attica Bank, he said a full audit is necessary.
Attica Bank, whose majority of shares is owned by the engineers’ pension fund, is the credit institution that granted the letter of credit to the newly formed company by Yannis Kalogritsas -- who won one of four TV licenses. The bank’s shares are currently suspended from trading on the Athens Stock Exchange, pending BoG approval of a new board of directors, and it is prevented from making new loans.
He also backed BoG Gov. Yannis Stournaras, saying his party is absolutely in favor of the central bank’s autonomy and against even an “indirect intervention” in its work.
Queried over the extremely controversial issue of 2009’s budget deficit, which essentially marked the beginning of a sovereign debt crisis for Greece that quickly spun out of control and led to an economic “meltdown” since 2010 and no less than three bailouts by institutional creditors, Mitsotakis said:
“In 2009 (then prime minister) Costas Karamanlis requested a national understanding (during the campaign for the September 2009 election), yet a short time after, George Papandreou won the election with the slogan of ‘money exists’, yet eight months later we found ourselves in the first support program (bailout).”
Furthermore, in looking towards a future election result in his favor, he said that even if ND wins a big enough majority to form a government on its own, he will nevertheless seek political alliances.
Finally, he defended his position for seeking smaller primary budget surplus targets – a memorandum-mandated provision at present – in negotiations with creditors.
