Interior minister: ‘We are not magicians’
Interior Minister Costas Skandalidis admits that government policy over the past four years has been characterized by delays and inaction but maintains that the balance sheet, particularly over the past two years, has been in its favor. As for the «Convergence Charter» announced by Prime Minister Costas last week, along with a package of handouts, Skandalidis claims that these were not moves on the political chessboard, although he would have liked them to have been announced earlier. The minister hinted that plans for a double ballot and electoral list would be withdrawn from the new electoral draft law. «I do not insist (on these measures) nor have I ever believed that my proposals were politically unassailable,» he said. At the same time, he strongly criticized the main opposition New Democracy party and its leader Costas Karamanlis for hoping to achieve power by being negative just for the sake of it. «The country doesn’t need a map exercise by ND’s House of Babel, which will only come crumbling down,» he said. Skandalidis is also in favor of changes within the ruling PASOK party as «time is running out,» but he believes that all its forces will rally together in order to win the next elections.
