Tsipras: SYRIZA Win Can Signal "Start in Greece's Restoration"

Ahead of Monday's third and final parliamentary vote on a Greek president, the leader of the main opposition Radical Left Coalition party (SYRIZA) Alexis Tsipras said that a win by his party in national elections will be "the start of a great national effort to save society and restore Greece."

In an article that would be published in the Sunday edition of the (SYRIZA-backed) Avgi newspaper, Tsipras said:

      "SYRIZA's victory will be the start of a great national effort to save society and restore Greece - a national effort with international repercussions, since our historical responsibility is to open the way for an alternative policy in Europe, turning a eurozone country from a neoliberal experiment to a model of social protection and growth."

He said that his party is going to prove that "when peoples wish it, when they believe in their power, they can."

Tsipras noted that SYRIZA drew its strength from the support provided by a great social and political majority struggling for self-respect and justice, and added that the first step would be to apply the program he had detailed in Thessaloniki and resolve the humanitarian crisis in Greece.

     "This is non-negotiable," he stressed, "and does not create the need for new loans, nor will it come under discussion."
     "SYRIZA will pursue the rallying around it of as many powers from the people as possible, in order to acquire the majority in Parliament and proceed to implementing its program."

In any case, he added, "within this framework we will seek the widest possible agreements," and noted that the party is "fully aware that we are coming to unite, not separate - to build on the ruins of a looted society. That is why SYRIZA's government will not be a single-party government, it will be the government of the people."