Samaras government

By George Gilson

As it enters the last stretch of the campaign in a general election that all polls indicate it will lose, SYRIZA's main strategy is to depict New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his party as a force that will bring a restoration of neo-liberal austerity policies.

The ratification of the fourth memorandum requires decisions and new political planning from everyone. The debt issue remains, though it's likely that some sort of solution will emerge in July. However, if the Germans, and particularly Wolfgang Schaeuble, scupper the deal, Greece's position in Europe will be put into jeopardy.

“Do you have the impression that Schauble cares about Greece? He knows that there is no way the memorandums will succeed in our country. The only thing he wants is to control the French budget”, ex-Finance Minister of Greece Yianis Varoufakis told an audience during the presentation of his new book titled “The Abduction of Europe”.

If there is one electoral promise that most political leaders in Greece failed to honor once elected to power, it is the size of their cabinet. As far as I remember, the commitment for a smaller, more efficient and less costly cabinet was the common denominator of all Greek parties' programs.

A group of anti-state rebels entered the Achilleion Hall where main opposition conservative New Democracy leadership candidate Adonis Georgiadis was due to give a speech on Tuesday. The group entered the hall, raised a banner and obstructed entry so that the scheduled event was unable to take place.

The head of the public broadcaster’s employees’ union and the same group’s treasurer were arrested atop an Athens hill on Wednesday by police for the illegal transmission of a radio signal.

The two men, long-time unionists Panagiotis Kalfagiannis and Dimitris Kounis,  has arrived at the Attikon Alsos hilltop to check on the transmitters broadcasting the ERT Open signal.

Sources from the caretaker government on Friday dismissed high-profile criticism by the former foreign minister, who claimed that the previous Tsipras government had instructed the country’s diplomatic mission at the UN to vote in favor of an Argentine resolution on unmanageable sovereign debts.

Below are the highlights from a three-hour and mostly tepid debate by the seven political leaders with parties represented in the outgoing Parliament (sans Golden Dawn).