Present government turning Greece into ‘banana republic’, ND leader says

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Main opposition New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Friday repeated a call for elections, saying the interests of the country would be best served by the removal of the present government.

“With every day that passes, Greece is reminiscent of a banana republic because that is the state to which you have rendered the country,” Mitsotakis said, replying to criticism that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras levelled against him in Parliament.

“I defend the country’s interests and the country’s interests are not the same as yours. The interests of the country demand that you leave sooner rather than later,” Mitsotakis added, noting that Tsipras would go down in history as “the prime minister of closed borders and closed banks.”

Mitsotakis said that ND will vote in favour of a Parliamentary probe proposed by ruling coalition leader SYRIZA on political party and media loans, though he criticised the linking of what he called two different issues. SYRIZA, by contrast, would not support ND’s proposal for a Parliamentary committee to investigate its first six months in power that resulted in a bank holiday and capital controls, Mitsotakis said.

“You don’t want this committee because you tremble at the revelations, because you are repeating the catastrophe of 2015 and fail to learn from your mistakes,” he said.

ND’s leader also slammed the government’s handling of the negotiations with the creditors on the review of the programme, saying it was tantamount to Chinese water torture for society.

He accused the government of turning Parliament into a “laundry” to cover up the scandals of SYRIZA’s members, noting the failure to investigate an affair involving the minister George Stathakis, and suggested that SYRIZA’s own finances would not stand up to careful scrutiny.

“You are a government of populism and lies…leave something standing before you leave. Because you will leave; the question is only how much damage you will have done to the country. Because every day that passes, the demand for elections grows stronger,” Mitsotakis said.

ANA-MPA, Athens