PM Tsipras in Agrinio: Positive measures require public mandate for Greece's future

SYRIZA's vision for the future requires popular unity and the defeat of the opposition and its misinformation campaign, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Monday evening, speaking at Agrinio in western Greece ahead of Sunday's Europarliamentary and regional elections.

All the relief measures announced for this year and next "do not require just a parliamentary majority to become adopted, they require the approval of the Greek people to be maintained," the ruling party leader said, warning that the measures would "never materialize otherwise."

Tsipras maintained that the ballot for the main opposition party, New Democracy, would contain fine print for voters and comprise "a mandate for the annulment of all these positive measures, a new round of taxes." The votes cast "are for whether we will continue beyond the loan memoranda and their austerity policies or return to them," he said, asserting that "Greece will not return to the tough austerity and the tough IMF years - the Greek people will decide its present and future."

The government's priority was to address the needs of the majority, the premier said, but it had to face the misinformation and obstructionist campaign of the main opposition, using polls and forecasts "to underestimate once again the critical faculties, knowledge, experience and intelligence of the Greek people." He accused the opposition of being "blinded by their desire to return to posts they believe are theirs by inheritance rights," but the measures his government instituted like the basic monthly salary rise, the 13th pension in addition to the 12 months, and improved health regulations were "victories for the many."

"Our government's greatest achievement is that under austerity conditions we managed to find a way to support weaker members of society," the prime minister stressed, and issued a call for voters of the whole political spectrum, regardless of past political party affiliation, to join "the Greece of the many" and vote for his party in all elections on Sunday.