Opposition parties turn up the pressure on ruling coalition
As the negotiations with Greece’s creditors drag on, the opposition has unleashed criticism against the government with conservative New Democracy and socialist PASOK repeating calls for Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to resign and centrist Potami underlining the risk of snap polls at such a sensitive time.
ND leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis is to start a tour of Greece after Easter, visiting businesses and communities to convey the message that a Tsipras resignation followed by snap polls would be a lesser evil than the continuation of the SYRIZA-Independent Greeks (ANEL) coalition.
Meanwhile Costis Hatzidakis, who is responsible for ND’s shadow policy program, is to meet members of unions and employers’ associations in a bid to hone the conservative party’s positions on key policy issues in case snap polls transpire.
PASOK also called on Tsipras’s government to resign on Thursday, describing it as a “circus” and saying its departure would be the only way to “avoid the abyss to which they are leading the country.”
Potami leader Stavros Theodorakis struck a different tone, declaring that snap polls or a referendum at the current moment in time would be tantamount to “Russian roulette” and expressing his hope that Tsipras does not opt for a “heroic exit.”
Speaking in the central town of Volos, Theodorakis ruled out the possibility of his party joining a broadened coalition with SYRIZA-ANEL.
