In the central market of Argostoli the President of SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance toured today Alexis Tsipras in the context of his visit to Kefalonia.

Mr. Tsipras conversed with shopkeepers, citizens, workers and pensioners for problems of everyday life and then addressed an open speech to the gathered citizens.

“Let the inhabitants of the earth learn justice”. With these seven words heard in churches during Holy Week, Alexis Tsipras from Kefalonia wanted to emphasize the timelessness of the citizens’ demand for Justice.

“2,000 years later and how relevant is the verse heard in the churches. This was the demand then and it is the demand even today in our country” underlined Alexis Tsipras, noting that we see 99% of the wealth produced going to 1% of the population.

“The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. And inequalities have dramatically widened in the last 4 years” pointed out the president of SYRIZA – PS.
At the same time, he said, “we see a significant majority of households unable to cope with bills, more expensive petrol and the supermarket nightmare and the 15 big companies to have record profitability with profits of more than 1 billion euros. At the same time, 96% of businesses cannot approach the bank and 4% borrow and re-borrow and the first millions of the recovery fund go to businesses counted on the fingers of two hands.”

Speaking to the residents of Argostoli he made special reference to the local ND MP Mr. Kappatos. “For 5 and 10 thousand euros, the ravens, which are also served by your senior member of parliament from Kefalonia, come to take people’s houses and at the same time the ND has 400 million euros in debt to the banks, but no one cares about it. If your name is Papathanasis and you are a minister, you may have a loan of 2 million euros, but you can clean it with a penny. How much more relevant is the message of justice” he said.

Alexis Tsipras exercised harsh criticism of government policy and accused Kyriakos Mitsotakis of hypocrisy for promising better wages and leading mainly the middle class to live on vouchers. “They promised better jobs and created a job jungle, especially for young people. They promised better pensions and took 7 billion euros from pensioners. The only increase they saw was the one legislated by SYRIZA in 2017. They promised security and a climate of generalized insecurity has been created among citizens both in relation to crime and the welfare state,” stressed Alexis Tsipras. Referring specifically to Kefalonia, he spoke of the degradation of the health sector in the last 4 years and of treating its residents as second-class citizens.
Referring to the staff state of the ND, Alexis Tsipras said that in the end it ended up being a state of bribery, client relations, direct assignments and a state that scares the citizens. “Look at what they did with off-plan construction, they brought a bill to promote small property in a few hands and now that they can’t go ahead with it during the pre-election period, they are freezing it.”

He blamed the ND for maximum hypocrisy: “We see them supposedly these days that they care about the weak, that they care about the middle class.” “Four years that they were in the government what did they do?” he wondered.

However, the greatest hypocrisy of the ND, as Alexis Tsipras said, “is to tell us that it cares so much that the extreme right will enter the Parliament, when it has Voridis, Adonis and Pleuris next to it”.

“He left Kasidiaris for three years to campaign from prison. He didn’t care. And now that he sees that through his politics he widened inequalities and through the agenda that promoted the far-right agenda, fences, immigrants, patriotism, he sees the formation of the far-right that we thought we had untangled is getting bigger” Alexis Tsipras pointed out, stressing that “Mr. Mitsotakis’ problem is not whether Kasidiaris will enter the Parliament. His problem is that there is no other recipient of this far-right vote that he only wanted to have. Because he got his credentials with the rallies for Macedonia that we allegedly sold it” he noted and underlined that “instead of legislating as SYRIZA told him, today we are being led to a terrifying institutional acrobatics which makes Kasidiaris a dude. It makes the extreme right a central topic of political debate.”

Alexis Tsipras then spoke emphatically about the complaints of the vice president of the Supreme Court and the suggestion of a bribe from a top government official, calling on the Prime Minister to provide immediate answers. “The head of the 1st department of the Supreme Court says that Mr. Gerapetritis and another senior government official tried to bribe him. Mitsotakis must answer. Who is this senior government agent who tried to bribe a judge? Who is this;” stressed Alexis Tsipras.

Mr. Tsipras also brought it back wiretapping scandal saying that Mr. Tsipras has destroyed every concept of the Constitution: “Only half of the political system was watching, only his political opponents were watching, the Chiefs of the Armed Forces were watching, half of his cabinet”.

“But he didn’t do all this out of spite, he did it as a hobby” he said ironically and added “every person has a hobby. Others go fishing, others play sports, Mr. Mitsotakis wanted to sit in his office and watch his opponents.” The President of SYRIZA – PS accused Mr. Mitsotakis of having led the public life of the country into the mire: “Into the mire of surveillance, of the manipulation of Justice, of circumventing every concept of the Constitution”.

Regarding the recent complaints of Mr. Tzanerrikos, he added that “normally the Prosecutor of the Supreme Court should have been charged, because here we are talking about a criminal act” and he left points for Mr. Dogiakos saying that in the wiretapping case “Instead of leading to Justice for those who did the monitoring, he hurried to create a wall against those who revealed the truth”. “Learn justice” the scriptures say, “scribes and Pharisees hypocrites” the scriptures also say” said Mr. Tsipras characteristically and added: “we are waiting to see what they will do. In any case, what we want and expect is for the Justice to be restored by the Greek people’s vote.”