SYRIZA and New Democracy clash over Thrace candidates

SYRIZA has accused New Democracy of “blatantly underestimating the democratic vote of members of the Muslim minority” in Thrace after New Democracy said that two of SYRIZA’s MPs elected in the last election in the northeastern region were exponents of “the most extreme Turkish propaganda.”

In a statement, SYRIZA said that the “arrogance” of New Democracy and its leader, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, meant they were “unable to tolerate any other color on the electoral map.”

In the May 21 election, the Thracian constituency of Rodopi was the only one in which New Democracy did not win a majority.

SYRIZA charged that New Democracy and its leader “do not hesitate to even play the dangerous card of targeting and dividing Greek citizens.”

Earlier, New Democracy spokesperson, Akis Skertsos, said that SYRIZA’s “selection of candidates who adopt the most extreme Turkish propaganda, speak openly about a Turkish and not a Muslim minority in Thrace and are visibly supported by the Turkish consulate … raises serious questions about the criteria by which SYRIZA serves the common foreign policy and defense against Turkish revisionism.”

Skertsos specifically referred to two candidates elected with SYRIZA, in Rodopi and Xanthi, respectively, in this context.

His remarks followed earlier comments by Mitsotakis, in a newspaper interview, that “some parties should have been much more careful in their choice” of candidates.

There are some 120,000 Muslims living in Greek Thrace. Greece recognizes the existence of a Muslim, but not ethnic, minority in Thrace.