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Mitsotakis says EU elections a first step for ‘bigger political change’

Mitsotakis says EU elections a first step for ‘bigger political change’

Conservative opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis called on Greeks to provide New Democracy with a “wide and clear” win in the upcoming European elections, saying they could be "the first step for a bigger political change."

He blasted Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras for providing cover for Alternate Health Minister Pavlos Polakis, after the latter suggested that an MEP candidate with New Democracy had used affirmative action laws to get a state job, and accused him of offering handouts and tax cuts to lure back disenchanted voters.

“You tried to change the agenda. To give very little from everything you took in the past four years. But Greeks who pay your taxes …see your panic. They see your effort to fool them again,” he told Tsipras.

Mitsotakis accused the prime minister of “blackmailing” his party MPs to support the government or “lose power,” noting that the dilemma in the confidence debate is whether lawmakers will side with Tsipras and Polakis or with the majority of Greeks.

He then took a jab at Tsipras over the publication of photographs that showed the prime minister on a luxury yacht last summer, following the devastating fires in eastern Attica, which killed more than 100 people.

“I wouldn't have placed too much importance on the luxury yacht if the same prime minister hadn't made a political career out of incriminating all business people and any association with them,” he said. 

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