Speaking about a “progressive coalition of victory” from Patras, where he presented his book “Ithaca,” Alexis Tsipras took another step toward the political initiative he intends to create, while simultaneously launching harsh criticism against the government. At the same time, he criticized the opposition, particularly PASOK, for its inability to constitute an alternative governmental solution.
“For hope to be sought, it obviously doesn’t exist in today’s political formations. Because for the hope of change to exist, two prerequisites must be met: You must want to and you must be able to. And I fear that neither one nor the other is being fulfilled by the existing formations,” he noted characteristically.
PASOK and progressive parties in Tsipras’s crosshairs
With what he said, Alexis Tsipras effectively pointed toward PASOK, noting: “Can someone who leaves open the possibility of governing with the Right, as long as Mitsotakis leaves, truly challenge the current government? And someone who cannot find cadres to place in positions of responsibility in his party who haven’t at some point publicly admired Mitsotakis?” Speaking about progressive parties that cannot guarantee a restart, he referred to forces that hesitate to take unifying initiatives to reconstruct today’s fragmented image or to “whoever insists on left-wing criticism and others’ mistakes, when they have never dared even to whisper about their own mistakes and failures.”
Alexis Tsipras spoke of a creative process for re-establishing the democratic-progressive coalition that would overcome the inert bureaucracy of current political formations. “From the bottom up and with active citizens. With citizen self-organization initiatives that can become forces of awakening, resistance and mobilization in local communities and production sectors that bear the burdens of today’s politics,” he noted characteristically.
Next elections as milestone for Tsipras – General call aiming for “fertile and creative break with the past”
Moreover, he set the next elections as a milestone, attempting in his own way to deconstruct the scenario circulated by many that he actually wishes to form a new entity simply to capture second place behind New Democracy. As he said, there must be a strong opponent against the ruling party through a general call. “Without exclusions, prerequisites, certificates of political beliefs, let us give substance to the progressive citizen’s willingness not to remain passive. With a fertile and creative break with the past,” he said.
Referring to budget issues, he justified farmers’ mobilizations saying: “Since they have deliberately devastated the majority of taxpayers with indirect taxation and high VAT, in order to have a surplus before elections and make handouts with petty political expediency. Well, let them give it now to farmers and livestock breeders. Let them give them now 100% of what they declared, from national resources, even in the form of returnable advance payment, and let the final offset happen when beneficiary controls are completed.”
Fierce attack by Tsipras on government – “They have turned the country into a vast swamp of corruption”
However, particular sensation was caused by the fierce attack he made against the Maximos Mansion, emphasizing in his way that until the elections he will be the main opponent of the majority, mobilizing a part of society. “They have turned the country into a vast swamp of corruption. The swamp of wiretapping. The swamp of Tempe and cover-up. The swamp of OPEKEPE. The swamp of cartels in electricity, fuel, supermarkets and banks, which treasure from the suffocation of hundreds of thousands of families. The swamp of a four-fifths society, in which one-fifth will live comfortably, saving money, and four-fifths will survive under terms of daily anguish.” The former prime minister particularly insisted on OPEKEPE: “I very much fear, however, that what we have seen from the OPEKEPE scandal is only the tip of the iceberg. Because we saw the disgusting face of the Frapedos and Hasapides. But we haven’t yet seen the faces of their accomplices in government seats and the amounts they returned to them in order to distribute state money.”
Alexis Tsipras, at the same time, in his speech compared his government’s achievements with what has happened in recent years regarding unemployment and exports, listing the positives of the 2015-2019 period.
