Mitsotakis tells ND cadres to be on standby for snap polls
New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis has called on conservative cadres to be on standby for a possible referendum or snap elections following the latest dramatic turn in the progress of negotiations between the government and the country’s creditors, Kathimerini understands.
During a session of the party’s political committee on Wednesday, Mitsotakis said Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras should resign rather than subject Greeks to another year of political turbulence.
“Mr Tsipras, if you are looking for a way out, quit now,” Mitsotakis said. “Don’t drag the country through new painful adventures in order to escape your own tragic dead end.”
“We won’t allow you to transform our country into a failed, third world nation which belongs to Europe only geographically,” he said.
Commenting on Wednesday, after Tsipras asked European Council President Donald Tusk to call a summit of eurozone leaders’ to discuss Greece’s bailout terms following a breakdown in talks between Athens and its creditors, ND’s spokesman Giorgos Koumoutsakos accused the government of “irresponsibility and a lack of credibility," saying it had given creditors, and the International Monetary Fund in particular, “room to demand additional painful measures which are unacceptable to ND.”
In his speech on Wednesday, Mitsotakis said it was ND’s “primary duty” to “lead a large movement to remove the current dangerous government from power.”
Using particularly harsh language, he referred to “a wretched troupe that calls itself a government and comprises professional liars and populist megalomaniacs.”
In a related development, Cretan ND MP Lefteris Avgenakis was appointed the political committee’s new secretary. There was no vote as he was the only candidate for the post.
