ATHENS: Greece’s outgoing conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his leftist rival Alexis Tsipras will make the last push for votes at closing rallies on Friday, ahead of the most uncertain general polls in a decade.
Harvard graduate Mitsotakis has choose a spot beneath the massive Acropolis in Athens to tout his record of steady development and growth, tax reductions and a post- Covid-19 pandemic tourism revival that has offered debt-ridden country a rare respite of financial stability.
Meanwhile, Tsipras will visit to the western port of Patras, Greece’s 3rd largest city, to argue that the government had handed out billions of euros to its allies while people are struggling with rising inflation.
The two major rivals have visited from island to border in recent weeks, delievering daily speeches across the Greece for a vote that, due to a change in the electoral system, may need a follow-up — likely on 2 July.
Though current polls give the outgoing PM has a clear lead of between 5 and 7%, the rules for Sunday’s election set a high bar for an absolute majority that no party is expected to reach.
Mitsotakis touts Greece’s economic gains
Mitsotakis has repeatedly called voters not to squander away the country’s economic gains, warning that failure to accord his New Democracy party a strong mandate will lead to “chaos” and “paralysis” in the country amid geopolitical challenges such as the Ukraine war or record inflation.
But Tsipras, a 48-year-old engineer-turned polician who was prime minister from 2015 to 2019, has described Mitsotakis’s rule as heartless, arrogant, and unscrupulous.
The leftist leader, who led rocky bailout talks in 2015 that nearly crashed the nation out of the euro, says the government’s allies have gained most from Mitsotakis’s tenure. – AFP/APP
