Meimarakis: I’ll form a nat’l consensus gov’t; Tsipras: I won’t cooperate with ND

Candidates continued to criss-cross the country on Friday, with snap elections in just over a week in what — hopefully — will be the last political campaign in crisis-plagued Greece in 2015.

Conservative New Democracy party leader Vangelis Meimarakis visited the small town of Proti, in northern Serres prefecture, an event packed with symbolism as the village is the ancestral home of the Karamanlis family. Greek Statesman Constantine Karamanlis  founded ND in 1974.

Meimarakis made it clear that if ND is the first-past-the-poll party in the upcoming election, he will act to form a national cooperation government and will assume the premier’s spot.

On Saturday from Thessaloniki the veteran conservative lawmaker, who held several ministerial portfolios and even served as Parliament president, is expected to flatly refute a recent batch of political scenarios claiming he’s willing to … step aside in favor of Alexis Tsipras if the two front-running parties form a coalition government.

Meanwhile, further east, the ex-premier, radical leftist Alexis Tsipras, told supporters in the Thracian city of Komotini that he’s asking voters to give his party an absolute majority.

He also said SYRIZA will not cooperate with New Democracy.

“We ask the Greek people to back us because we don’t have the support of the vested interests, we are only accountable to you and together we will move forward with the effort we started,” he said.

PASOK leader Fofi Gennimata, speaking from the central city of Larissa, predicted that voters will give PASOK and not Golden Dawn third place in the upcoming ballot.

In a departure from the strictly campaign agenda,  former minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, who split from SYRIZA to establish the far-leftist and anti-memorandum Popular Unity party, attacked the caretaker government

for abstaining from a UN vote on whether to raise the Palestinian flag at the organization’s headquarters. He made the statement after meeting with the Palestinian diplomatic envoy in the country.

Finally, centrist Potami party leader Stavros Theodorakis told reporters in Thessaloniki that his party’s participation in any future coalition government should  not be taken for granted.