“What is at stake the next day is our lives, with which program the country will be governed in the next four years”, stressed Alexis Tsipras from Anogeia.

“He will be governed with a program that emphasizes the need to strengthen the NHS, combat accuracy, or with a program that further devalues ​​public health and continues the plundering of income by empowering the powerful and taxing the many.” ?”, said the president of SYRIZA PS. He emphasized that the critical issues are whether “the redistribution of income will continue through taxation with the high VAT, whether the largest redistribution of property will take place with the 700,000 auctions expected in the next period, whether public health and education will be strengthened or colleges and private hospitals’. He noted that “the SYRIZA program says that the VAT and the Social Security tax should be reduced, the ND says that it should not”. He commented that ND says he has not put a single tax, “but when the cost in the household basket doubles but the VAT remains constant there is no need to be taxed, the tax you pay doubles. Same with gasoline. This happened in the last year and a half in the country. 6 billion more were paid by the citizens, who went to the energy cartels, the supply chain and the refineries, to keep the prices high.” Mr. Tsipras said that “we will tell our truth to the people and let them decide. We will of course accept his verdict whatever it is, but one pledge I make to you today under Psiloritis: whatever that verdict is we will stand on our feet, we will fight, we will be here and fight to support the weak, the middle-aged and sooner or later bring the progressive faction back to the helm of the place”.

Mr. Tsipras underlined that “we were not and will not be a complement to our political opponents, nor a protest party, whatever happens in this ballot box, we are the party that will stand on its feet to strengthen its perspective recovery of the progressive faction in power. We will return to governance to represent the interests of the great majority.” He added about the upcoming ballot box that “we are not flying in the clouds, it is very difficult to overturn the correlations completely, but the ballot box will be empty and it will be full on the 25th”. He argued that the criteria for voting now is different because it is an election with enhanced proportionality “which means that either one will come out or the other, or the ND program or the SYRIZA program will come out” and noted that “it is crucial for democracy not to have on the 26th of the month an uncontrollable and all-powerful arrogant right that will come to level social rights without an opponent”.

In this context, he emphasized that “every vote of a progressive citizen that goes to any other ballot box apart from that of SYRIA objectively favors the plan of Mr. Mitsotakis and the ND”. “We aim to reverse the correlation, but in any case we aim the next day to be strong against these policies that prey on the interests of society,” he said. He added that in this proposal there will be ND voters who will agree “because they know that stability for the country is a political system with strong pillars and not a system where the one who governs will be uncontrollable”.

He accused the ND of “arrogant behavior” that “carries dangers, such as the unacceptable and nationally damaging behavior we see these days when they play with such a sensitive national issue with the Muslim minority in Thrace who, for 45 years now as long as I can remember, has been voting with her own criteria”. He said that “there has never been a party that came out and said these MPs were voted in because they made an agreement with Erdogan”, while he commented that “when Dora Bakoyannis went to the elections in ’12, she got 2% nationwide, but in Rodopi she had got 18% and in Iasmos he got 70%, what happened then, did he make an agreement with Erdogan?” Mr. Tsipras said that “today, however, unscrupulous because this part of the electoral map was not painted blue, they come out and say without shame that a party that ruled the country with dignity and national pride are traitors. Where will they get to?’ He mentioned in particular that “Ms. Bakoyannis went out there and found the minority and told them if you don’t vote for us you will have a hard time. This is not just a message to the Muslim minority, it is a message to every social class to every citizen. He said it in front of the cameras to go to every house, that if there are social groups that have a different opinion from their own authority they will have a hard time.” “We say in our country that democracy will remain strong and SYRIZA will fight so that no one feels fear”, he underlined.

He spoke of “the great hypocrisy of the ND”, stressing that “we had Barbaros violating our sovereign rights at the time, we did not do it like the Orouts Race that went up and down the entire Aegean and they said that the waves were taking it and the wind makes noise, and does not violate our sovereign rights. We had sent the Nikiforos Fokas frigate and it prevented the Barbaros from conducting investigations.”

“They will not come to us to talk about patriotism. Just as we do not speak of Greeks with reduced patriotism, so we will not tolerate a fly on our sword, because we have fully fulfilled our patriotic duty”, he underlined. He said SYRIZA did this “when some had decided to invest in the patriotism of telling us that we traded Macedonia for pensions, because we decided to take this country on our northern border from the influence of Turkey.” He commented that “4 years later they honored and kept the Agreement and Zaev came out and sent a congratulatory telegram to Mitsotakis. “Hypocrisy on national issues is damaging,” he said.

Mr. Tsipras began his speech with the phrase “as in life, so in politics, you are allowed to fall but you must get up”, emphasizing that SYRIZA shocked many 11 years ago, that “SYRIZA is not a flare, it came to stay. Because he came to represent social needs and the underprivileged”. He said that for this reason “it became and will remain the pillar, the strong force of the progressive faction” and that “we will never become a party-supplement of our political opponent, we will be a party of power against the ND”.

Mr. Tsipras said that he is self-criticizing for the “strategic entrapment” in the previous confrontation. “We do not regret that we adhered to our value framework, we envisioned changing the political system. But the tango needs two or the pentozali needs more, we were alone”. He mentioned in particular that “while we were shaking hands with the other progressive forces on how to govern the country with a progressive program, they were looking to cut off our own hand and sided with us and not with Mr. Mitsotakis”.

“We have a showdown with enhanced analog before us and let everyone take their responsibilities for it, we ours and the other progressive forces that buried simple analog, theirs,” he said. He added in particular: “For 60-70 years, the KKE fought for the simple analog and when we brought it, it said you are all the same. KIN.ALL. one-sided in SYRIZA, he said before the elections that we don’t want either Tsipras or Mitsotakis, but if some MPs are missing we will not leave the country without a government. This strategy benefited Mitsotakis who was first in the polls. In other words, he left the cooperation with the Right open. When the election results came, they changed their tune, and 149 Mitsotakis has it, we will not go. What happened; Mitsotakis’ need has changed, now his need is to blackmail his voters to go to the polls and vote for him and he says if I don’t have 151 we will go to a third election”. “If I were Mitsotakis and I didn’t have Androulakis, I would have to invent him to help me in the previous elections as well as in this one,” he commented.

Mr. Tsipras referred to the actions of the SYRIZA government, including the access of 2.5 million uninsured citizens to medical coverage, debt regulation, “we left the country with full coffers, growth came again, we restored collective bargaining, we increased the minimum and we abolished the minimum, we strengthened the SEPE, we supported the labor fighters with the 13th pension, we reduced the VAT on catering, on energy, PPC and the other energy companies did not increase the bill by a single euro”. He added that in crisis conditions SYRIZA put the hospitals on their feet and made recruitments, “more than 300 were recruited in EKAV, 4 years now the ND did not do any in EKAV. Why, he had no money? No, he had no plan to strengthen the NHS and we see where this policy leads.” He added that three of our fellow human beings lost their lives “because the ambulance was not there in time to receive them” and raised the question: “What is the cost of human life and dignity?”.

The residents of Anogeia welcomed Mr. Tsipras in Maidani Square with, among other things, tsikoudies, Cretan scarves as gifts, while the well-known mandinadologist Aristidis Hairetis dedicated the following mandinada to him: “the eagle is not humbled nor does it lose hope, only it is always at the top, whatever the weather”. Earlier, Mr. Tsipras had visited the village of Zoniana where he discussed with the residents in the cafes, among other things, the problems of the livestock farmers.