ND leader calls on defectors to return to the fold
New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Sunday invited defectors to “come back home,” saying that the conservative party is also looking to bring in “people from other political spheres.”
“New Democracy needs them like never before, because the stakes are high,” Mitsotakis said, speaking at a campaign rally in the city of Volos for New Democracy's candidate for regional governor of Thessaly, Costas Agorastos. “We are fighting for Greece's soul,” he added.
He said that the European parliamentary elections on May 26 will be “the first message of defeat to the government,” ahead of general elections, which are expected in October unless snap polls are called before that.
Mitsotakis, whose party is a member of the center-right European People's Party, also reiterated that he intends to write to the party leadership in Brussels on Monday to demand the ouster of the populist Fidesz party of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
The EPP is expected to discuss growing calls for Orban's expulsion later this month after his government launched an anti-immigration, anti-EU public campaign last month, with billboards, posters, print and television ads carrying images of Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
