The President of SYRIZA was in Corinth today, Wednesday Alexis Tsipras, where he toured the city market. Mr. Tsipras, after his tour and discussions with shopkeepers and consumers, addressed a short open speech and referred to the following:

“The battle that we have to fight until May 21 is a battle that concerns our lives” he initially emphasized and called on citizens not to pay too much attention to what they see in the media in the last few days. “Pay attention to daily contact with ordinary people in the squares, on the streets, in the cafes, in the workplaces. One is the feeling that now dominates the citizens. That the time has come to say so!” emphasized Mr. Tsipras.

“The crucial thing for our lives is which policies the country will be governed by” he said and added that “What is needed is of course for the forces of honesty to come forward, but also with a plan that will give the place a breath of fresh air” explaining that “For 4 years now what prevails is the deception of the middle class, pensioners and employees, the discrediting of any concept of public interest. For four years now what dominates our lives is injustice. I think it’s time to call it quits. So far in discredit, so far in exploitation, so far in deception and injustice”.

Mr. Tsipras then stated that “the crucial thing is until the elections on May 21, to talk about the real problems that Greek society has. This is our goal, to talk about the problems” and he added that “the real problems are above all the shrinking income. It’s labor relations. It is the deficit of hope for the new generation. It is the insecurity that the citizen feels towards a hostile state. It is the dismantling of the national health system. It is the fear of the crows and the funds lurking to take the first home, the business house and the agricultural land. These are the major problems facing Greek society.” At the same time, he underlined: “On the contrary, the government, Mr. Mitsotakis himself, his ministers, the media that support them do not want us to discuss these big problems at all. And they don’t want to, because they don’t have answers. Four years now have given writing samples. They have no answers to the accuracy, to the shrinking of the income”.

“They say precision was imported. Yes, but profiteering is not imported at all, it is Greek. It is not possible for our country to be the most expensive country in Europe in terms of the price of electricity, gasoline, with the most expensive prices in the supermarket, while we have the lowest wages,” stressed Mr. Tsipras and added that “they don’t want to give answers and arrive to the point of passing the world for impaired perception. I was watching yesterday how they tried to amateurishly put on another show for the TV cameras by restarting the railroad, a month after the tragic Tempe accident. They went so far as to dress as alleged passengers the ND executives at the OSE, the very people who were in the show fiasco at the Larissa station to show that there is supposedly a remote control station, while it was an obsolete console. The same people to pretend to be passengers and say how safe they feel. How stupid do they make the citizens out to be? I don’t know if these tips are given to them by American communicators. But I want to remember a phrase of a great American politician, not a communicator, Abraham Lincoln, who said that one can fool everyone once, fool a few all the time, but cannot fool everyone all the time. This government cannot mock the Greek people for 4 years and want to mock them again at the ballot box on May 21.”

Mr. Tsipras also spoke about the deception of society by the Mitsotakis government, saying that “He deceived the pensioners, he ordered them in 19 that he will keep the 13th pension, which at the time was called crumbs and was 1.1 billion annually. He cut the retroactives and deceived the pensioners that they should not make appeals because what those who appealed will get what the others will get. No one took the gifts and side dishes. If we add up over the 4 years how much it costs to cut the 13th pension and the non-return of retroactives, it is 7 billion euros. 7 billion euros less for pensioners. They defrauded the middle class. They ordered tax cuts and what they finally gave 4 years later were unprecedented, terrifying increases, income decreases and ends on the third week of the month. According to the official data of Eurostat, for an income of 750 euros per month, the purchasing power has decreased by 40%. They ordered relief and what they actually gave was an unprecedented loss of income. And they’ve made the middle class they were supposed to be supporting go to the supermarket with coupons and pay for gas and electricity with coupons.”

“However, the most serious thing is what is coming, because I want to speak the language of truth. We are facing great challenges. And Mr. Mitsotakis and his government have a plan, the redistribution of the wealth and property of the middle class and the weak” he then said and underlined that the plan of Mr. Mitsotakis is the redistribution of the wealth and property of the middle class and of the weak to the few and powerful and explained that this redistribution takes place in two ways.

On the one hand, he emphasized, the government “keeps VAT and VAT high. Why is he doing this when prices have skyrocketed? To increase the revenues of the State. We have sleaze and state sleaze. 4 billion more in 2022 were the revenues from VAT. It gives subsidies, not to the citizen, but to energy companies to keep electricity prices high, to refining companies to keep gasoline prices high, to supermarkets to keep prices high.” “15 large listed companies in 2022 had 20% profits. At the same time, tens of billions are the losses for the middle class, the salaried, the retired” underlined the President of SYRIZA – PS.

At the same time, Mr. Tsipras also touched on the issues of the state, saying that it has become a state for blue children, mothers, golden boys, thousands of transferees with increased salaries, and a tripling of the managers in DEKO, while he characterized the 10 billion that were given in direct tenders and closed tenders to companies created three days before. “From the many to the few and powerful and at the same time looting of public money by the ‘blue locusts'” summed up Mr. Tsipras.

The second form of redistribution, Mr. Tsipras said, has to do with the redistribution of wealth through the tsunami of auctions. “If Mr. Mitsotakis is elected, this tsunami of auctions will come,” he pointed out. “I am addressing the middle class, not only the weak” said Mr. Tsipras and continued “to the self-employed, to the employees, to the pensioners, who with life’s work have a house with a loan and cannot repay, which has been reddened and has been transferred to the funds and in the next period it is expected to be auctioned”. “Private debt has increased by 40 billion, non-performing loans have reached 111 billion and 700,000 properties have passed into the hands of funds and management companies, their value is over 40 billion euros. Their plan is to change hands. This is the big issue that should concern Greek society in the run-up to the elections.”

Mr. Tsipras then referred to the proposal of SYRIZA – PS for the protection of first residence, commercial housing and agricultural land and raised the dilemma of the elections – among all others – addressing, as he said, “to all citizens, right-wing, left-wing , centrists. Not only on the left. We are addressing the citizens who have worked and see their properties threatened.” The dilemmas, as Mr. Tsipras pointed out, are “protection of property or looting of property. Debt regulation or redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the hands of the few” and estimated that “society will decide on loan regulation and protection of the first home”.

“Society cannot become a jungle,” emphasized Mr. Tsipras and added “we cannot live in a country of plunder, the middle class and the weak cannot become wealth in the hands of the few.”

“The next elections are crucial for our lives” said Mr. Tsipras and said that “simple proportionality is a fair electoral system and choice of SYRIZA, but it does not mean that we choose to vote ‘protest’, but let me say it differently: The most powerful protest vote, the most powerful anti-systemic vote is the one that will hurt the system that has been ruling us for 4 years. The Mitsotakis regime”. “The vote that will hurt both the interests and those who govern us is the vote that will lead to the defeat of the ND. And this is the vote for SYRIZA”. “With the victory of SYRIZA, there will be a progressive government of cooperation the next day, which will restore justice, hope and perspective. Not in adventures with second and third elections”.

Mr. Tsipras reiterated that a vote for SYRIZA means: salary increase, price reduction, debt regulation, fair efficient strong state next to the citizen”.

Finally, Mr. Tsipras noted that “some people present themselves as supposedly anti-systemic” and wondered “what kind of anti-systemic are those who are against the system and want to put prosecutors and judges in the combinations, which is the system within the system?” . “The battle against fascism, intolerance, misanthropy is not fought with hollow and unconstitutional decrees, but with daily struggle, with solidarity and support for the weak and the different. For a pluralistic and democratic society where everyone will be equal.”

“On May 21, we vote for our lives, we turn our backs on injustice, we bring justice back to the place. SYRIZA will win the elections and a progressive government will give hope, perspective and breath to the vast majority of society.”