Electoral Pledges

As for Mr. Tsipras' commitment that he will form a “progressive government”, it comes across as provocative when coming from a person who for four years ruled with the [right-wing populist] Independent Greeks party as his junior coalition partner.

It is clear that in the two rounds of regional and mayoral elections the question voters answered was, ‘Yes or no to the government?’

It is by now patently obvious that the PM has chosen the path of extreme polarisation in order to rally his dwindling political base.

The Bank of Greece rang the alarm bells over the danger of fiscal derailment due to Greece’s Council of State rulings which deemed unconstitutional earlier pension cuts and the abolition of holiday bonuses.

One did not need the IMF’s report to understand that complacency or even worse a mindless return to the bad practices of the past could prove fatal

The IMF report said that the government should bolster its legal arsenal to allow a reduction of NPLs on private sector terms

The more handouts the government announces the more the main opposition party’s lead in the polls is grows.

In the economy, the government appears for purely electotral reasons to be testing its limits with pledges, civil service hiring, and various handouts.

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

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.

Over-taxation, austerity, and vote-mongering handouts trap the economy in a vicious circle which hinders growth and consequently impedes the creation of new jobs.

It is clear that pledges of handouts will continue, despite the fact that they impact negatively on investments and growth.

The distribution of hundreds of millions of euros in handouts is depriving the Public Investment Programme of funding.

For the government, the end justifies the means, and everything is placed at the disposal of the general directorate, in order to avert the impending handover of power.

The government insists on following political recipes that led the country to bankruptcy. It insists on approaching the major problem of unemployment with the outlook of an employer.

One day the government urges pensioners to file applications for back pay, and the next, realising that its pledges are unfeasible, it hastens to bring them back to reality.

Not only did the SYRIZA-Independent Greeks government break its promises, but it also marshaled all judicial means at its disposal to block the return of the holiday bonuses (worth two monthly salaries annually).

What one sees is the anxiety of the government to distribute hope and promises with a view towards elections, the date of which has not been announced, but which seem ever more in sight.

That past is too recent for the SYRIZA-Independent Greeks government not to see that unhampered promises of handouts lead to fiscal derailment and offer no political gain

The government persistently pledge handouts, which citizens know have no credibility, but which also harm the country and the economy due to the distrust they provoke in partners and investors