PM says voters will decide who will govern, not who will be in opposition
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Wednesday framed the decision laying before voters in the new elections which are expected on June 2 as a choice on who will govern, not who will lead the opposition.
“We will vote for who will be the government, not who will be the opposition. What happens in the opposition concerns SYRIZA and PASOK. I would like to express the hope that during this electoral period we speak more about policies, about the real problems citizens face. Every citizen voting for ND signs a contract of responsibility with me,” he said in an interview to Alpha TV.
Speaking from his office in Maximos Mansion a day before a caretaker government takes over, Mitsotakis said voters also rejected “toxicity, vulgarity.”
“It became obvious that real society is elsewhere than in the toxic microcosm of the social network media. A great cycle of anger and rage that opened in 2010 has ended. We can be optimistic about the future. I wish and hope that our opponents also learned their lessons,” he said.
Commenting about Greece’s relations with Turkey, he said that the neighboring country’s territorial claims have not hanged. “No Greek prime minister – and certainly not I – will discuss issues of demilitarizing the islands, especially more so issues related to the East Aegean islands’ sovereignty. These are beyond discussion,” he said, adding that if he becomes prime minister again, he will seek to meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the NATO summit in mid-July, provided he wins the runoff election on May 28.
In terms of the opposition parties, he noted that “SYRIZA failed as main opposition and certainly did not participate in efforts for wider agreements. Can PASOK play that role? I don’t know. It continues to give me the impression it wants to return to the glory of the 80s, but we are in 2023. SYRIZA lost 12 percentage points, while PASOK gained 2 – you cannot call this a triumph.”
Commenting on the deadly train collision at Tempi last Februart, he said that former transport minister Kostas Karamanlis assumed his political responsibility and resigned, and elections would not whitewash the issue. Asked about the surveillance scandal, Mitsotakis said that “mistakes were made” and efforts made to correct them.
