The political and electoral targeting of PASOK-Change Movement was mentioned by Nikos Androulakis in his interview with ALPHA. “Vote for PASOK on Sunday so that there will be a strong, reliable, progressive opposition tomorrow and a strong, reliable, progressive choice of government in the coming years,” he noted.

“We honor the popular verdict. However, we believe that this happened because the mechanism of fearing the worst worked. In other words, citizens did not trust New Democracy, but feared the worst with SYRIZA. Let’s destroy the mechanism of fear and shape the mechanism of hope for the best” underlined Mr. Androulakis and added, when asked about what is in the best interest of the country: “For me, it is in the best interest of the country to have another policy and not the one that has adopted by New Democracy. Dignity, corruption, opacity.”

“The previous fear was that “SYRIZA is coming” and they won by 20 points. It is the well-known “new fear” that Mr. Mitsotakis has discovered. “Vote New Democracy, because we will spoil your vacation in August”. These “fears” are nice, but there is no longer a dragon. The Greek people can pin their hopes on a strong, progressive, credible opposition. With us strong, the New Democracy will be forced not to behave like a deep client state” he commented on the dilemmas of the New Democracy.

Mr. Androulakis referred to the experts’ report on the tragedy in Tempi. “The conclusion about Tempe is deafening. What it says; That they could have remote control and not have 57 dead fellow citizens. They had not, because there were widespread phenomena of corruption. Mr. Karamanlis knew everything, because the transparency principle had given him a conclusion, which explained why while in 2014 the European Union gave us 55 million euros to have remote control, we did not get it. And instead of taking the finding and taking it to the prosecutor – apparently so as not to involve the “blue guys” of the OSE and other organizations – he kept it in his drawer.”
Regarding the issue of Thrace, Mr. Androulakis emphasized: “Is it possible for the Greek people to be divided over an issue that needs a lot of attention and sensitivity? Mr. Mitsotakis seems to have been the first to know this story, and then Mr. Tsipras was also informed. Why did Mr. Mitsotakis delay so much? Did he wait for Mr. Tsipras to say the problem with his parliamentary candidate? So, did Mr. Mitsotakis know for weeks that there is a man on his ballot that the Greek secret services consider to be playing a bad role and was he keeping him on his ballot and waiting for Mr. Tsipras to say so? Isn’t this a cover up? What do we want from our MPs, Christian or Muslim Greek citizens? To respect the Treaty of Lausanne. Because it is this Treaty that has forged stability and we must not go to Erdoğan’s games under any circumstances, who spoke of revising it. So, let the candidate MPs come out publicly and say that they respect the Treaty of Lausanne. Why don’t the SYRIZA MPs do it?”

Regarding the electoral leverage of PASOK-Movement of Change, Mr. Androulakis pointed out: “The reality is that in this new political scenario that has been formed, there is no leverage. It is important to make our faction the main pillar against maintenance again. This is the goal of our faction. It may not be completely achieved now, in a year, in two years, but that is our goal. Opposing the maintenance should be the democratic faction as a genuine expression of every democrat, every progressive Greek. That is where PASOK’s renewal, unity and political autonomy converge.”

He criticized the Government’s housing policy: “We want to reduce the cost of living with rents. I reiterate our strategic goal of 150,000 social housing units along the lines of Spain, Portugal, Austria, Germany and Italy. Why; Today if you look at what is happening in the center of Athens, Thessaloniki and other big cities, the rents are unfortunately so high that a new couple cannot start their life with dignity. And we have to turn that around. Even as an opposition what have we achieved? No one in Greece was talking about social housing and with our year-long campaign, New Democracy was forced to make five speeches. But its model with low-interest loans, with the percentage it gives, is not working, because the cost of buying houses in our country has increased too much.”
Regarding the fatal shipwreck off Pylos, Mr. Androulakis noted: “It is a tragic event. Hundreds of people have lost their lives. There must be investigations to inform the public what Greece did when it found out about the existence of this difficult situation on this particular ship. And the international public opinion should also be informed, so that our country is not attacked by foreign media”.

Referring to a comment by Alexis Tsipras in an interview in Chania that “Mr. Androulakis will know something”, and not referring to the wiretapping, he pointed out: “Do you know how it turns out that I behave differently from both of them? As soon as I found out, I went to the Greek and European courts. Last Thursday, the PEGA resolution came out – the conclusion of the European Parliament’s inquiry committee – which blasts the New Democracy of Mr. Mitsotakis. So, I did my best at every level. What did they do? Let’s see who’s holding who. When Mr. Tsipras learned that his closest associate, Mr. Pappas, was convicted 13-0, did he keep him on the ballot or kick him out? It kept him on the ballot. When Mr. Mitsotakis found out about the interceptions planned by the parastatal, in which his nephew was the main protagonist, what did he do? Masking. So here we have a case, mine, which is conflicting and trying in a valuable way to ensure the respect of human rights and the quality of democracy and on the other hand we have two party leaders who, because they are afraid of something, obviously, cover up the circumstances their”.