The SYRIZA presidential candidate launched a fierce attack against the New Democracy government – Progressive Alliance Efi Ahtsioglou for the murderous attack on an AEK sports fan by far-right Croats and called for the resignation of the Minister of Citizen Protection citing a “fiasco” and “operational collapse”. “Yesterday a young man was lost, a young man was murdered, it is an unimaginable tragedy”, said Mrs. Ahtsioglou and added that we should discuss politically, and politically “the responsibility for this tragic event is fully borne by the government of Nea of Democracy”. He added that yes “we can discuss in detail about hooliganism and say how big a social problem it is, but the murder of this young man would not have happened yesterday and we would not be discussing this today either if the government had done what it should have done ».

After noting that “it is an unimaginable, unimaginable business fiasco for which New Democracy bears the sole responsibility” he explained: “from the moment you have information that such a mass of people were going to enter the country, with such violent dispositions and from the moment there was full information, how many they will be, even the details of their license plates, what they are going to do, i.e. we are talking about dozens of people who, while it was known that they were going to enter the country, enter, cross half of Greece, arrive in the center of Athens , get on the subway undisturbed, get off in Philadelphia and act in this murderous way on people who had gathered to watch a football game or were even families there with children. Here we have the ultimate, the ultimate responsibility for an unimaginable fiasco, which resulted in the loss of one man’s life and I really wonder, is it possible for the responsible minister to stay in his position at this time?’

He made it clear that “Mr. Economou should have already resigned, because he bears the ultimate responsibility” and added: “it seems inconceivable to me that an entire government is politically covering up this fact.” He also emphasized that “there are no eternal excuses, it is not possible forever to discuss the general, social, political phenomena in order to bring them as an alibi and as an excuse for the unimaginable and tragic inadequacies of the government”. When asked if all these issues were decided in the elections, Efi Ahtsioglou wondered: “Were the loss of human lives decided in the elections?” and underlined that “it is an unimaginable insult to the democratic functioning of the state, it is an unimaginable insult to the citizens themselves and to the intelligentsia. No election result justifies a business collapse of this magnitude.”

Finally, speaking about her text of support for the sexist attacks she received, as well as the statements of support from all her co-candidates, Efi Ahtsioglou said that “what the comrades say is valid, that is, there is indeed still a strong sexist attitude in Greek society background, the result of a rigidly structured patriarchal society”. He pointed out that “this exists to a very large extent in the media, unfortunately it exists to a very large extent in politics and unfortunately – to be honest – it exists to a much lesser extent in the Left as well, it may not be the mainstream, but unfortunately it is there”. He also stated that “I don’t think that the characterizations by comrades “about beauty queens” or such language that have been used can be tolerated within the Left, because they are a transfer of sexist standards”.