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Samaras Tells Greeks: Give Me a Majority, No Coalition

New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras says he wants to rule Greece alone

ATHENS – New Democracy Conservative leader Antonis Samaras, confident his party will prevail in upcoming elections, has urged Greeks to give him a mandate so that he doesn’t have to form a coalition government with his bitter rival PASOK Socialists. The parties now are part of a shaky hybrid administration being overseen by caretaker Prime Minister Lucas Papademos until Greeks go the polls in late April or sometime in May as no date has been set yet.
Samaras supports the austerity measures being set on Greece by international lenders in return for rescue loans to keep the country from a disorderly default, but he opposed them when PASOK leader George Papandreou was in power, and says he now wants to renegotiate the terms if he wins. He called for the elections to be held immediately after Easter, April 15.
In a speech to his party’s political committee on March 11, Samaras said he didn’t want to work again with PASOK, even though polls show the two parties blamed for creating the economic crisis will likely finish 1-2 again as they have for the last 35 years, but without enough of the vote to have a majority of the 300-seat Parliament. Current polls show New Democracy with 30 percent of the vote at most, and PASOK, which was at 44 percent two years ago, lingering around 13 percent.
“I don’t want my hands to be tied,” said Samaras. “A single-party government is essential so the country can be saved,” although he didn’t detail how he would do that as he gave his imprimatur to the pay cuts, tax hikes, slashed pensions and upcoming firings of 150,000 workers over the next three years demanded by the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank. That Troika is providing Greece with $152 billion in rescue loans and getting ready to begin releasing a second bailout of $172 billion, although that came with a requirement investors take 74 percent losses, triggering a technical default.
Samaras said that so-called Private Sector Involvement (PSI) deal to reduce Greece’s debt some $134 billion has given Greece some breathing space, although some European officials are fearful that the rescue will lead Greek politicians to return to the free-fall spending that created the economic crisis. The austerity measures, in return, have created a deep recession of 21 percent unemployment and the closing of more than 111,000 businesses, with many more vanishing every day as consumers have markedly slowed spending.
“This agreement has bought us some time,” he said. “If we have a one-party government we will be able to use this time for the good of the country. Greece does not just have need of good management, it needs major reforms. These reforms have always been conducted by strong governments in Greece and abroad,” he said.
Samaras criticized the previous PASOK government for agreeing to the terms of Greece’s first loan agreement, or memorandum, with the Troika – although he now supports it – and said that whoever leads the Socialist party at the next general elections will be tainted by being part of serious mistakes over the past two years. Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, who has doubled income and property taxes and imposed taxes on the poor, is the runaway favorite to replace Papandreou and be PASOK’s candidate.
Although he’s working now with PASOK leaders in the current coalition and went along with more austerity measures he had adamantly opposed previously, Samaras said he did it to save Greece’s membership in the Eurozone, although he didn’t say if he moves against austerity if elected how he would keep that from happening again. He said the second bailout deal was better than the first because it included the debt write-down.
Samaras also blistered Leftist parties, accusing them of adopting an equivocal stance on Greece’s membership in the Eurozone and being responsible for many of Greece’s problems despite not having held power. He did not take blame for his party’s acknowledged forgery of Greece’s economic condition before PASOK took power in 2009.
Samaras said he would seek common ground with other parties after the elections but would prefer to govern alone. “We want and will pursue national coordination with everyone but national coordination is one thing and a coalition is another,” he said. “Greece will not change on the back of petty political bargaining that will sacrifice the national interest.”
Samaras’ speech, seen as the launching of his campaign,  reiterated themes that New Democracy hopes will boost its support over the next few weeks. This included the issue of growth, which Samaras said would come through use of EU structural funds, economic reforms and an overhauled tax system. He also pledged to crack down on crime, particularly self-styled anarchists who vandalize private and public property, but offered no ideas on how to rein in tax evasion costing the country more than $60 billion nor how to promote growth. He also said he would move to revoke the citizenship of second-generation citizens granted under a 2010 law.
 

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