Christidis: KINAL will not prop up either Tsipras or Mitsotakis

The Movement for Change (Kinima Allagis-KINAL) party will not be a complement to either SYRIZA President Alexis Tsipras nor New Democracy President Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the party's spokesman Pavlos Christidis said on Monday, in an interview with the Athens-Macedonian News Agency's radio station Praktoreio 104.9 FM.

Christidis commented on the fact that KINAL party leader Fofi Gennimata decided not to place historic party cadre Evangelos Venizelos at the head of the KINAL's state deputy ticket, causing a rupture in relations within the party.

"For our part, the progressive development of the country is number one and we do not believe that this solution can be given either by Mr. Tsipras...or by New Democracy, which has a conservative programme and is desperately trying to hide its positions on a number of issues, even though they cannot be hidden," Christidis said of KINAL's strategy, adding that "there was no aggressive move towards anyone".

He also pointed out that the recent KINAL conference made a decision that the party "should play a leading role, have an autonomous course, an independent strategy and this is what all our executives, all our members throughtout Greece, are serving", as "we do not want to lose each other, we want to win, we do not want to become third or fourth as developments unfold".

Venizelos, a high-ranking minister and one-time president of the PASOK party, which forms the core of the alliance of parties that created KINAL, quit KINAL in anger on Saturday after Gennimata informed him that she intended to place former Athens mayor Giorgos Kaminis at the head of the party's state deputy ticket, a position which effectively ensures election to parliament.