New Left attacks gov’t at founding conference

New Left attacks gov’t at founding conference

New Left head Alexis Haritsis attacked the government’s handling of the deadly Tempe train collision at his party’s first conference.

The party, a splinter from leftist SYRIZA, was founded in early December and currently holds 11 seats in parliament.

Haritsis characterized the head-on train crash as a crime and accused the government of covering up the site in order to absolve itself of blame for the deaths of 57 people in the incident.

“A crime that revealed that below the [government’s] triumphalism over the country’s development miracle, there lay a harsh, unrelenting reality … of shattered infrastructure, a country suffering due to the absence of long-term planning, the waste of public resources, of corruption and non-accountability,” Haritsis said.

According to party officials, the New Left has concluded 120 open conferences around the country.

The party is expected on Sunday to endorse its official political declaration and to announce the party’s participation in June’s European Parliament elections.

The Palestinian Ambassador to Greece, Yussef Dorkhom, attended the conference.