The war of words between SYRIZA and New Democracy Vice-President Adonis Georgiadis is heating up with the MP branding the ruling party as communist who have brought disaster to the country.
“The paramount aim is to topple the communists who sold out the country,” Georgiadis said in an interview with Star Channel web TV.
Manfred Weber, the conservative European People’s Party (EPP) candidate for the European Commission presidency, who has strongly supported New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis on two visits to Greece (most recently to kick off the EPP’s European parliament election campaign), has also said in the past that the problem in Greece is its communist prime minister.
SYRIZA has blasted Weber for his having called for Greece’s expulsion from the eurozone when it was on the verge of Grexit during SYRIZA disastrous first six months in power.
At the same time, New Democracy cadres have repeatedly referred to PM Alexis Tsipras as the obedient lapdog of Berlin.
Georgiadis was one of ten politicians investigated by the judiciary in the context of a probe of the Novartis scandal after a parliamentary majority lifted their immunity and sent their case back to the judiciary.
He and the other nine politicians have charged that the affair is a government conspiracy, implying collusion with a segment of the judiciary. Five of the case files were closed by prosecutors for lack of evidence, but not those of Georgiadis and four others.
For its part, SYRIZA has constantly hammered New Democracy with the argument that the most right wing faction in ND (including MPs Makis Voridis and Thanasis Plevris, who along with Georgiadis jumped from the ultra right-wing populist party LAOS to ND) has hijacked Greece’s conservative party. Georgiadis played a pivotal role in electing Kyriakos Mitsotakis as party leader.
Asked in the Star interview about political moves by the most right wing faction of New Democracy and others to ND’s right– namely the above MPs but also former LAOS MP Kyriakos Velopoulos who has formed a right-wing populist pro-Russian party called Elliniki Lysi (Greek Solution) – Georgiadis lashed out at SYRIZA and defended LAOS.
“When you have communists in power who have sold out both Greece and their ideology in order to stay in office and do all that they do, to talk about whether Mitsotakis is a bit more of a centrist and Georgiadis more right-wing is a luxury we cannot afford,” Georgiadis said.
SYRIZA blasts Georgiadis
The ruling party’s response to Georgiadis’ pronouncements was vitriolic.
“In yet another extreme-right rant, Adonis Georgiadis says that the “paramount aim is to topple the communists who sold out Greece”. Mr. Georgiadis is not an extreme right troll of New Democracy. He is its vice-president. The divisive, civil war-like sermon of Mr. Georgiadis expresses Mr. Mitsotakis, who appointed him to that position. Today’s New Democracy with Messrs. Mitsotakis, Georgiadis, and Voridis is a hybrid that combines the extreme right with extreme neo-liberalism,” SYRIZA said in a statement.
