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In an interview with the Sunday edition of the "Real News" newspaper, former Athens Mayor and New Democracy MP Nikitas Kaklamanis also decided to add his own "two cents" on matter. For over ten days now, Stournaras has been very critical of the Karamanlis government, especially the period between 2007-2009 (something which was also used by George Papandreou when he first gained government in October 2009). What some people may not know is that Stournaras was a member of the Costas Simitis government, and therefore a strong supporter of Champagne socialist policies, and an enemy of the libertarian and conservative policies of Karamanlis.
Kaklamanis noted that the former premier doesn't need patrons when asked to comment on the recent Manifesto that was published by the supporters of Karamanlis, (who proved with numbers that the period under his rule did not derail Greece's economy as pointed out by Stournaras and his former PASOK colleagues). Nonetheless, Kaklamanis took the opportunity to send an indirect (or direct) message to Mr. Stournaras by underlining that Karamanlis is part of ND's history and "whoever offends this history, with all the positive and negative aspects aligned to it, shall find us on the opposite side of the road. Especially when this person says that I do not belong to your political party, as Mr. Stournaras did."
Kaklamanis emphasized that "Karamanlis supports Antonis Samaras, and is the force of unity of the ND party, which in return is a stability factor for parliamentary democracy." He the accused Stournaras of having a "selective memory" because he said Stournaras "forgets about the 30 scandals in the 1996-2004 period when he co-governed (the country) with Costas Simitis."
Stournaras, added Kaklamanis, "speaks about the period 2007-2009, when the problem of the crisis became global, but he somehow forgets that the financial derailment of the country is a result from the policies of the Costas Simitis government, which he was a key member of."
"From the top of my mind I know of 30 scandals that shook Greece during the period 1996-2004, but clearly two stand out for me. The "cooking" of the figures to get Greece into the euro zone and the Greek stock market scandal. Some may suffer from a selective memory, but the Greek people do not. They remember every single detail."
Basically Stournaras came under attack for a number of reasons, top of which was his decision in recent interviews to discuss the fiscal derailment that took place between 2004 and 2009. In doing so, Stournaras broached a somewhat taboo subject.
"I will show you a chart with annual public spending as a percentage of GDP," he told (last) Sunday's Kathimerini in an interview. "From the early 1990s until 2006, when it reached 45.2 percent, there were few fluctuations. Immediately afterwards, in 2007 it rose to 47.6 percent, in 2008 to 50.6 percent and in 2009, it skyrockets to 53.8 percent. The only way I can describe what happened after 2006 is an economic derailment."After the above statements, several ND deputies expressed their exasperation with Stournaras. The party’s secretary Manolis Kefaloyannis suggested in comments to the 98.9 FM radio station last Monday that Stournaras had become too big for his boots. “Criticizing everything is a bit arrogant,” Kefaloyiannis said. On the other, party spokesman Makis Voridis struck a similar tone, saying that Stournaras’s comments “don’t help,” and defended Karamanlis’s governance in a speech in Serres, northern Greece. Stournaras then also became the focus of critical comments by other conservative MPs including Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Prokopis Pavlopoulos and Evangelos Antonaros.
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