The three major achievements of his government were underlined by former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, speaking at the conference of “Kathimerini” for the 50th anniversary of the Post-colonization, while harshly criticizing the government of the Prime Minister for the wiretapping scandal, saying that it is a “dark moment in the evolution of Greek Republic”.
Talking to the journalist Xenia Kounalaki and referring to the “legacy of his government”, Mr. Tsipras, after noting that the country during his days remained synonymous with Freedom and Democracy, added that he is proud of three things:
– For the exit from the memoranda, for the restructuring of the debt and for the fact that the country with the cushion of 37 billion euros stood without a credit line. The SYRIZA government succeeded in getting the country out of the memorandums, something that the three previous governments did not achieve.
-For the Prespa Agreement, against the trend and the dominant populist voices even of people who believed in it deep down, such as the current prime minister, stood against it. It was a great moment.
-The third for the fact that despite the critical moments, the SYRIZA government was the most honest of the post-colonial era in terms of managing public money. No stain was left as he characteristically stated.
Harsh criticism of the government
Mr. Tsipras harshly criticized the prime minister for the rule of law: “Our democracy is celebrating 50 years but there is a black spot, the black spot of wiretapping. It was an unprecedented scandal, half of the political system is monitored and after a year and a half there is not a single prosecution. On the contrary, the attempt to cover up in parliament creates a feeling of discomfort in society”.
Generalizing, he said that “Our democracy does not have strong institutional counterweights and operates in a framework of entanglement with economic interests. I won’t say she is cachectic but she is sick. He is suffering. The weakness of the progressive space and the opposition, the weakness of the press, the judiciary, create negative conditions that strengthen an anti-political trend”.
The Left has its own responsibilities in Greece and in Europe, it cannot keep up with the developments and give a perspective in order to move and give a vision to the broad masses of the people. Her values are different social justice, solidarity, democracy, only she can defend them.
Self-criticizing his administration, he noted that “I am not proud because, despite our intentions, we gave an image different from what we intended. We achieved a lot but we guiltily managed the great success that the country remained standing and we took it out of the memorandums. It was not at all certain that we would not enter a credit line as even Yannis Stournaras said. Something we achieved by building the pillow. Finally, we set the table so that the current prime minister could taste the fruits of the dinner. We also did not proceed with the velvet divorce of the State Church despite the agreement with Archbishop Hieronymos.”
Regarding co-government with ANEL, he replied: “You make choices based on your capabilities. We had 149 MPs, the possibilities of trust that were restored in 2018 for Stavros Theodorakis to enter the government had not been restored then.”
Regarding the Novartis case, he noted that despite the good intentions of his government, “we lumped together people who were involved with people who were not involved.” Similarly on the licensing of the channels he said that “the management was unfortunate and ended up instead of a favored framework in the same and worse”. However, he argued that “the Left and my government are judged more severely than the Mitsotakis government. If there was a resolution of the European Parliament in my own government, I would not be able to stand for Maximos even for a moment. The same if there was a wiretapping scandal. The same in any EU country. Look what happened in Portugal”.
Far right danger
Mr. Tsipras underlined the danger of the extreme right and the need for political forces to set aside their differences and form a common stance. “Political developments combined with the rapid development of technology create strong uncertainty and crisis. That’s where the far right takes root. Our era is similar to what was experienced at the end of the interwar period. We must recognize the risk of the rise of Le Pen in France, who is expected to sweep the European elections, of the Afd in Germany, of the return of Trump.”
In the field of foreign policy, he accused Kyriakos Mitsotakis of “abandoning the multidimensional foreign policy launched by Konstantinos Karamanlis and followed by all subsequent governments”.
Mr. Tsipras called it “nonsense that he was an imitator of Andreas Papandreou” and added: “Maybe some who said these things were disturbed by the fact that the wave of 2015 had similarities with 1981. But beyond that, Andreas Papandreou had two sides. It was an emblematic form of Greek democracy, it completed the post-colonial period. He carried out the social integration by which he joined the social fabric of half if not a third of the Greek population that was excluded after the civil war. However, there is also the end of governance, at the end of his term he himself became an establishment. Had it not been for Konstantinos Mitsotakis with his vengeful attitude and the Special Court – with the responsibility and complicity of the Left – the story would be different today.
He finally noted that “I am not happy for the country because after 50 years of smooth progress, the young people are leaving the country again. There has been a crack in the Postcolonial social contract. It is evident that the new generations see that they will live worse than the previous ones.
Mr Tsipras said he was “happy that my own government played an important role in normalizing relations with the US”.
Referring to the Left, he said that “the Left does not manage to keep up with the developments and to give the prospect of excitement and a better life. The Left must reflect. Its values are timeless.”
He referred to the critical period of 2015: “There were persons and forces that flirted with the need for the country to leave the euro”, however he clarified that “I never thought of negotiating our presence in Europe”. He added: “The country could not move forward without a new loan agreement. Europe’s leadership did not dare to take a step back. The referendum dramatized the developments and enabled both sides to take a step back. We had a popular mandate to negotiate so that there would be a viable prospect of exiting the crisis with society on its feet.”
Making a broader assessment, he noted: “We were led to the crisis because of the betrayal of post-colonial values. PASOK and ND have equal responsibilities because they betrayed their own ideological principles. They turned into parties without a coherent ideology. The country stopped producing and stopped taxing. ND revised a basic principle of its identity which was good fiscal management”.
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