ND Leader Mitsotakis says Greece needs political change “to unlock the future”

Greece’s main opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis says the elections of May 26 will pit the truth against lies, progress against stagnation and modernisation against backwardness.

The New Democracy leader spoke at an event organised in Athens by the KEFiM liberal studies centre on "Greece 2021: An agenda for freedom and prosperity."

According to Mitsotakis, the upcoming polls will be a "great challenge for progressive, liberal thought" and he stressed that Greece needs a new start "so we can all unlock the future".

In his speech, he referred to security and public safety issues, especially the need to impose order on Athens' "lawless" Exarchia district, stressing that a New Democracy government will end these phenomena, as well as abolishing university "asylum" and laws that led to hundreds being released from prisons.

The main opposition leader also called for political change, asserting that Greece was a "country experiencing the repercussion of political dishonesty" and "the stench of government scandals that cannot be hidden, no matter how much mud is slung by the true culprits."

"We have an inefficient but expensive state that made the economy tank and made citizens poorer by leading them to become clients of political parties in exchange for benefits," Mitsotakis said, stressing that "freedom and solidarity" were the two things that "make us different from SYRIZA".

"Instead of the nation's wealth constantly shrinking and an even smaller part given as a 'gift' to ever fewer people, we prefer the country's continual growth that gives a dividend to ever greater numbers," he added.

Mitsotakis also referred to the new dangers that arise from the overconcentration of power by the state, the power of global corporations with resources dwarfing those of smaller states, migration and inequality and the liberal response to these problems, which was to grant equal opportunities.