Former Greek premier Alexis Tsipras urged supporters yesterday to give him a mandate to complete the country’s political transformation, as a poll showed his leftist Syriza party’s lead slipping ahead of elections next month.
Tsipras abruptly resigned last week, days after clinching an €86 billion bailout package from Greece’s eurozone and IMF lenders, aiming to crush a rebellion by far-left lawmakers and tighten his grip on power.
Hopes the lenders might soon resolve differences over how to tackle Greece’s existing debt rose yesterday, when IMF head Christine Lagarde told a Swiss newspaper a form of restructuring rather than outright forgiveness should enable the country to cope. Eurozone creditors, notably Germany, have ruled out a writedown.
But Tsipras’ gamble to call early elections, to be held on September 20, could backfire, opinion polls suggest – with most Greeks disapproving of his decision to seek a fresh mandate and how he handled the talks with creditors.
Syriza led the Opposition conservative New Democracy party by as much as 15.2 percentage points in May. But the gap hasbeen gradually whittled down since and it dropped to 1.8 percentage points in an MRB poll for weekly newspaper Agora published yesterday.
Other polls also showed the lead narrowing, suggesting momentum may be shifting towards New Democracy.
Against us is the old political system that pushed the country into a tragedy
Tsipras said he wanted to complete what he started when Syriza won national elections in January.
“Against us is the old political system that pushed the country into a tragedy, which built the regime that led to the bailouts,” he told a gathering of the party’s central committee in Athens. “We want to demolish this regime.”
He urged supporters to fight back against the old and “hated” political system he held responsible for Greece having needed bailouts, and justified his decision to agree to a third rescue.
“We do not regret having fought nor having chosen at the end to avoid catastrophe,” he said.
“Whoever wants to escape has the right to do it but we are moving forward, we have not seen our best battles yet,” he said in a reference to a breakaway Syriza faction that has formed the anti-bailout Popular Unity party.
The MRB poll showed Popular Unity was backed by 4.2 per cent – above the three per cent threshold needed to enter Parliament – while Syriza was on 24.6 per cent and New Democracy on 22.8 per cent.