Mitsotakis, Tsipras cross swords with vicious attacks in parliament

By George Gilson

PM Alexis Tsipras and New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis exchanged vitriolic and below-the-belt attacks over issues ranging from economic policy to their private vacations to how their families made their fortunes.

Personal debt in Greece has skyrocketed to 140 billion euros from 85 billion euros, said main opposition New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis in the parliamentary debate on the confidence vote called by the government.

Mitsotakis had tabled a no-confidence motion against Alternate Health Minister Pavlos Polakis and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras under parliamentary rules chose to turn the no-confidence motion against the minister into a confidence motion for the government. The vote will be on 10 May.

Tsipras said that the 10 May parliamentary vote and the 26 May elections are a confidence vote on the government's economic stimulus programme.

Tsipras hammered Mitsotakis as a neo-liberal who wants to roll back the social state and said that the ND leader has a secret  agenda that is fully aligned with the policies of the IMF.

He lambasted Mitsotakis for supporting conservative EPP party Manfred Weber, the conservatives' candidate for the European Commission presidency who in 2015 supported kicking Greece out of the eurozone.

After Tsipras announced his economic stimulus programme on 7 May, Weber attacked him as irresponsible in a tweet.

Both Tsipras and Mitsotakis exchanged barbs about each other's families, with the PM calling the opposition leader's family «enormously wealthy»and Mitsotakis replying that Tsipras' family (his father was a contractor) made its fortune by getting building contract from the junta (1967-1974).

The PM  dismissed ND's attacks against Polakis and...