alexis tsipras

'One-off stipends are being disbursed to more and more groups of beneficiaries, which are arbitrarily determined when [super] primary surpluses are reached.'

Tsipras and his SYRIZA party have been outwardly optimistic about garnering the necessary simple majority of 151 votes in the 300-seat legislature,

The PM clearly views its prospective ratification as a major accomplishment of his government.

'It is my country. It is my fatherland. I can’t tell you how happy I felt when I heard the PM say, ‘You are from here.'

The country and its political life must rid themselves of the habit of using the date of elections as a means to achieving political aims.

'When you hear someone boasting about his own ethos and altruism, it is best to put your hand in your pocket to protect your wallet,” Alavanos quipped.

Economic policy must be decided with those who are economically weakest in mind, and not with the vote-mongering rationale of past decades.

The leadership and members of SYRIZA indiscriminately and unabashedly depicted their political opponents as either traitors or thieves.

'This person requested to be photographed with me and proceeded to do so with his cell phone, which is something that dozens of people do on a daily basis.'

The earsplitting revelations about the “friend” of a top minister and his ties to the Prime Minister’s office should have already been heard and duly noted by the judiciary.

With its customary opportunism, the government has managed to transform the Greece-FYROM Prespa Agreement into a domestic problem that has divided society and the government itself.

In Larissa, Kammenos said that he will pull out of the government if the Parliament of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia finalises the constitutional amendments required by the Prespa accord on 15 January.

The SYRIZA-Independent Greeks government copied every single one of the populist ills with which post-dictatorship Greek democracy was fraught.

The odd couple in the SYRIZA-Independent Greeks coalition appears to be interested only in its own survival. It is indifferent to the consequences of its actions on the country.

It is legitimate for the prime minister not to like revelations. It is undemocratic, however, to target particular media outlets, the same media which in the past government members attempted to control or even shut down.

The targeting of the media was and is the foundation of the PM’s political career. Like many other populist leaders, it was and is his fervent desire to control and subjugate the press.

The PM’s remarks were widely viewed as a bid to calm the public and MPs who were positive about ratifying the accord but expressed second thoughts.

With non-papers and official statements it expresses its views on a wide variety of issues, often with language not befitting the office that he holds.

When Mr. Tsipras cannot persuade his coalition partner to stop shrieking and making nationalist pronouncements, he cannot demand unconditional opposition support.

Neither Athens nor Skopje confirmed reports that Greece wants to add under UN auspices a protocol clarifying the correct interpretation of the accord’s provisions on language.

The PM accused the media (including this newspaper) of scare-mongering and stirring fear when he was seeking power .

There is a serious danger, despite the fact that consumption is not increasing, of a burgeoning trade deficit, with obvious consequences for macroeconomic imbalances.

When FYROM citizens refer to 'Macedonians of the Aegean', they refer directly to an irredentist tradition that views the geographically largest part of Macedonia, which is the northern province of Greece, as an unliberated territory, essentially as a Greek-occupied part of their country.

Alavanos charged that before the elections Tsipras 'offered ribbons and lollipops hoping to lure the electorate', and said that SYRIZA is 'the most poisonous opponent of the Left'.

For electoral reasons, the government pretends that the country that has left behind the economic crisis, when it is abundantly clear that it is still very much with us.