Opposition leader dismisses PM as a ‘fraud’
The tension was palpable in Greek Parliament on Tuesday as the opposition lashed out at the government during a debate on legislation that included a clause revoking a bailout commitment for further pension cuts.
“I don't know how proud you can feel about being the longest-serving prime minister in the memorandum era, but today you must suffer the torment of the truth, a truth that you created and is being felt by Greek society in its very flesh,” opposition New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis said, pointing to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and accusing him of squeezing the Greek people for taxes in a policy that has been nothing but “a big fraud.”
“You have today completed 1,417 days in power and citizens know that you tricked them with false promises,” said the chief of the conservative party, which is leading Tsipras's leftist SYRIZA in public opinion polls. “You have put on the mask of the seeming philanthropist, touting the abolition of pension cuts that you enacted.”
Mitsotakis also lashed out against the government with regards to its handling of the controversial name deal with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, accusing Tsipras of trading the agreement with the pension cuts in talks with the country's partners, who are eager for the agreement to go through in the interest of Balkan stability.
“In Brussels they are saying that no other Greek prime minister has been so easy in negotiations. You have given up everything for power,” Mitsotakis, whose party opposes the name deal, said.
