syriza

'There was strife. He [Kotzias] nominated certain candidates that drew a negative reaction from local SYRIZA branches...but I am certain we will meet up in common pursuits in the future,' PM Tsipras said.

Critics have charged that the government – with the pretext of trying to break up an oligopoly of contractors who always were awarded public works - split up the project into several sub-tenders in order for Kalogritsas to land the contracts.

Now that the Novartis scandal has boomeranged, the PM and the government are all either keeping silent or blaming the delays in the judicial process.

She has lambasted PM Alexis Tsipras’ attempted shift toward Social Democracy as yet another ruse – glaring carbetbagging that aims to further pillage her party’s electoral base.

Citizens were left speechless by the transfers of RULING PARTY politicians’ daughters and other relatives into cozy, well-paid Parliament jobs

The government kept Parliament open a bit longer to set up an unprecedented operation of unabashedly passing into law various patronage measures.

In terms of voter intention of those who declared they have decided which party they will vote for, the spread between SYRIZA and New Democracy is 7.7 percentage points

The measures include the gradual reduction of business tax over four years from 29% to 25% (it fell to 28% this year), a reduction of the ENFIA real estate tax in certain lower income categories, and a rent subsidy,

The party that was trounced in recent elections and any political party that aspires to govern should know that citizens are no longer willing to issue blank checks.

SYRIZA’s self-proclaimed moral advantage, its promise of a renewal in Greek politics, and its putative social sensitivities were judged and renounced in an explosive manner.

Poll on the 7 July general election had the ruling party trailing ND by nine percentage points, nearly the identical spred as in the 26 May European Parliament election.

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

The defeat of SYRIZA-backed candidates nationwide was considered yet another harbinger of a New Democracy landslide victory in the 7 July general election.

Within three years, Tsipras led a very small party to become one of the country’s top two parties, with a good shot at gaining power.

New Democracy says the appointments in a pre-electoral period are unconstitutional.

With a general election campaign in full swing and a government that is collapsing SYRIZA insists on appointing the successors of the outgoing Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and its chief prosecutor.

Because they cannot yet criticise PM Alexis Tsipras directly, SYRIZA are targeting his closest associates as if they were making the decisions on their own.

'We must not examine only the individuals, but also the programme, which is to say an end to austerity, a social Europe, and emphasis on climate change,' diplomatic sources quoted Tsipras as saying.

Though the sense that the PM was all-powerful vanished on Sunday after the election results were made known, he does not appear to have understood that.

As it turned out it was not the opinion polls that constituted fake news but rather the crude propaganda of SYRIZA and its mouthpieces.

The result is a harsh defeat for SYRIZA and a crushing defeat for PM Alexis Tsipras who single-handedly  ran the campaign, criss-crossing the country and running on a class-based platform

'[The Greek people will decide] whether they want us to carry on with a plan to support the many or whether they want to return to the darkness of austerity, of the IMF, of the yesterday that we all lived through,' Tsipras said.

Later the Singular Logic company that has been hired to administer the vote count projected a 9 percentage point spread between New Democracy and SYRIZA.

The exit poll results, if confirmed, would be a clear-cut strategic victoryfor ND, as both Alexis Tsipras and New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis framed the election as a vote of confidence in the government.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said that if Tsipras is defeated in the 26 May European Parliament election “he should go to Zappeion Hall and announce his resignation and declare that elections will be held in four weeks”.