Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras addressed an event titled “One Year Left, One Year Battle. We Proceed” at the Tae Kwon Do stadium at Paleo Faliro, Athens. The event commemorates his first-year anniversary as Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) Prime Minsiter since first assuming office on January 25, 2015.
Tsipras strutted onto the stage after a propaganda-styled video celebrating a year of SYRIZA. He then spoke of a battle that he had began a year ago, admitting that his vision “was larger than his size”. He spoke of the pride in kicking the battle against “austerity.”
“We gave a breath of dignity and struggle to an injured nation. We are proud that we collided and gave battles to a conservative regime,” he said. “We are proud that we are standing firmly on our feet and giving a battle to put an end with what brought our country to the verge of catastrophe.”
He said Greece would not be a “hostage” to the interest of oligarchy that SYRIZA faced during the bailout negotiations. He spoke of traps that had been set out during the negotiations, including Grexit boobie traps.
He said that the nation gave a vote of confidence to SYRIZA three times in less than a year with the most critical being that of the referendum (July 5) with 62% support (for ‘N0’) sending a message for democracy to Europe. The popular mandate in September after a Grexit was alerted allowed the government to continue its effort to get Greece out of a Grexit. “The battle is not over, it is still in front of us,” he said. “Europe, today, a year later is not the same following the Greek experience of harsh negotiation.”
He pointed to the “seed” in the South of Europe, showing the Portuguese example of a left bloc. “We believe that soon we will also have a left government in Spain,” he said, directly refering to Podemos.
“Let’s hope for a constructive opposition,” he said, stating that the opposition will have a hard time reckoning with SYRIZA that has the support of the people.
“Many say that we made a mistake a year ago for not letting (former prime minister Antonis) Samaras pull the snake out of the trap,” he said. “Thankfully we did this so that the snake wouldn’t be rapped around the people’s necks.”
“The left is here for the bad times not just the good times,” he said. “We’ll take the chestnuts off the fire.”
Tsipras pointed to his party’s first action of reducing puglic servants. “Some dare speak of cronyism, those who have turned the country into a family business,” he said before turning to main opposition conservative New Democracy party leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis (of the Mitsotakis clan). “We will never blame Mitsotakis for his roots & his family, we will battle him for his ideas with the weapon of our own ideas.”
Mitsotakis is brash to criticise SYRIZA bearing in mind the problems that it caused to the nation. He spoke of the looting that went on before SYRIZA came to power and the 13-bln-euro cost of the PSI. “Wealth worth more than 50 bln euros disappeared in four years,” he said.
“It is brash to hear Mr. Mitsotakis speak about SYRIZA’s negotiation,” he said. “With ‘yes-to-everything’ they dragged down the country’s GDP by 25%.”
“Our nation remembers and knows well that in the house of a hanged man, you should not speak about rope,” said Tsipras.
Tsipras pointed to a dilemma: “Reforms or collapse of the system?” Though SYRIZA didn’t bring the country to the verge of this situation, the party now needs to develop a system to help the country escape the crisis.
He said that some people of the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE) and farm unionists of PASEGES voted in favor of ‘Yes’ in the referendom and are now at the frontlines against the government. Regarding farmers, he said: “We are struggling for small farmers who earn less , not for those with huge subsidies.”
He said that instead of having a deficit, Greece had a surplus. Furthermore, he pointed to Greece climbing up the rankings for the absorption of the National Strategic Reference Framework. “Why?” he asked, suggesting that those who adminstrated the programs may have not transparently commissioned them but regulated their adoption to serve their own interests.
“We put ERT back on air, opened dialogue for equal partnership for homosexual couples, jobs back to those unfairly fired,” he said. “We have gone through Lagarde list & repayments have already begun.”
Two upcoming plans:
– a new development strategy
– a new electoral law
Developing story.
