10th New Democracy Convention: Mitsotakis says Greece needs ‘oxygen’

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, leader of Greece’s major opposition party New Democracy, promised to ‘rebuild’ the party and enter ‘a truth pact’ with the people, during his address at the party’s opening day of its 10th Convention in Athens, Friday. ‘You gave me the mandate to build New Democracy from scratch’, he told party delegates. Speaking to a packed convention of 4,000, he went on to say that he would propose a ‘truth pact’ with the people’. ‘All united we will bring Greece that is suffocating and in danger the oxygen it needs’, said Mitsotakis. The conservative party former presidents were in attendance sitting the in the front row, as well as highly-respected statesmen of the past. Vangelis Meimarakis, his opponent in last year’s party elections, chose to sit a little further back. Mitsotakis avoided raising the rhetoric against the Greek government and the leftist SYRIZA party. He outlined his general vision on the way Greece could exit the current economic crisis, stressing that the goal of his party would be to move forward with a national growth plan, by implementing ‘our own ideas and proposals in collaboration with the creditors’.