Tsipras administration

In his second speech during the parliamentary debate preceding the vote of confidence in the government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis, former prime minister and SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras accused the PM of a hypocritical political stance on key policy issues.

From the first months of the Tsipras administration and especially after the second general election in September, 2015, when the stratagem of annihilating opposition politicians and pro-opposition media was hatched, there were charges that the government wanted to use the judiciary as a political tool.

All that has been revealed in recent days through the public statements, letters, and interventions of judicial functionaries confirm in the worst manner that the charges and allegations in the notorious Novartis scandal were plotted and organised to target specific political opponents of the government and not to get to the bottom of the scandal.

In the late 1970's, a few years after the fall of the colonels' junta, a book of stories by the Turkish writer Aziz Nesin was published in Greece with the title Coffee and Democracy.

With the possibility of early elections in May on the horizon and recent polls putting Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's back up against the wall, the government appears more focused on avoiding politically costly moves rather than tackling the country's pressing issues such as the fragile banking system, imminent high court rulings ordering retroactive payments to pensioners and civil servants,

New Democracy on Monday accused Alexis Tsipras of being divorced from reality after the left-wing prime minister hailed his government's efforts in protecting Greece's labor sector. 

"Some degree of humility and some degree of contact with truth and reality will do no harm," the conservative opposition said in a statement in reaction to the prime minister's May Day statement.

Greece's conservative opposition has reacted to comments made by Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos who said in Parliament Tuesday that tax hikes introduced by the left-led government have mostly hit the pockets of the country's middle class.

The Greek government was shocked with the outcome of the US Presidential elections, which saw Republican candidate Donald Trump achieve an astonishing victory. The Tsipras administration had invested a lot on the pro-Greek stance of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and her party on the Greek debt issue.

After the failure to receive any kind of promises regarding a debt relief by his EU partners at the Brussels 2-day EU Summit, Greek PM Alexis Tsipras returns to Greece to weigh his options and plan the government’s next move.

By Costas Iordanidis