English version|30.06.2019 13:36

PM Tsipras: The ballot boxes will be empty on July 7

Newsroom

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras sent message to voters to bring at least one other person to the polling stations on election day, while addressing a party rally in Volos on Saturday night.

"Your presence here is yet another proof that our opponents, who consider the outcome of the elections a foregone conclusion, have not fully understood something. The ballot boxes will be empty on the morning of July 7. Hope and prospects will defeat arrogance and pride," Tsipras said.

The prime minister also accused the media supporting the main opposition of seeking to "mute" the debate on party policies and conduct the election campaigns without informing voters about the parties' programmes and "hiding what they are planning".

"They are trying to convince [voters] that the elections have been decided. They say that its inevitable that the Greeks will go back. No, nothing is inevitable. We decide our future. We are not governed by the desires of those that bankrupted the country. The reversal will come if each one of us manages to convince one other person to cast their vote, one other person that wants a better life in this country," Tsipras said.

Voting on election Sunday was primarily about putting our life and Greece first, he added, not the party of our choice.

SYRIZA did not claim to be infallible or to have done everything right, Tsipras noted, but it had taken a country with empty coffers and a debt of 400 billion euros and had somehow managed to "pick up the pieces" filling those coffers with 34 billion euros from the toil of the Greek people, to pay for pensions and state services.

"They cannot forgive us for succeeding. This is why they are fighting us so manically," he said.

SYRIZA's goal was a strong and dynamic Greece, which moved forward into the future based on its own power and generated growth and prosperity for everyone, not just a favoured few, Tsipras added. It also wanted Greece to have strong social state and justice, so that every person felt secure and every Greek family can plan its future.

Tsipras also referred to the Prespes Agreement and the benefits this had for Greece, not least the fact that Greece now had a friendly nation and not an enemy on its northern border at a difficult time in the Aegean and for Cyprus.

Tsipras also criticised main opposition New Democracy for not agreeing to a debate between its leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Tsipras before the elections, saying it was trying to "hush up" its programme and have people vote without thinking too hard about its plans when in government. He accused ND of seeking to win the elections by repeating palatable slogans about fewer taxes, better jobs and strong growth but without explaining how this would be achieved, while also pointing to ND's past record in all three areas.

"They say fewer taxes but they mean less social state, abolition of benefits, the dismantling and privatisation of the public health system," he said, while warning that ND's promise to begin pension reforms from scratch will ultimately lead to the abolition of supplementary pensions.

electionsAlexis Tsipras