While Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has hailed a deal with international lenders as a saving grace, the main opposition party Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) said it was designed to buy votes ahead of critical elections in May for Greek municipalities and the European Parliament.
SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras said the agreement with the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) was a “public relations stunt” designed to keep Samaras’ New Democracy Conservatives from suffering a punishing defeat at the polls.
Polls show SYRIZA leading and Tspiras has predicted his party will win big and force early elections in which he would come to power and revise or renege on the terms of 240 billion euros ($331 billion) in two bailouts that run out this year.
He hasn’t offered any alternative however nor an economic plan what to do when the loans run out and Greece can’t return to the markets if his government defaulted on the loans.
Tsipras, however, noted that Samaras had dramatically revised his vow to return 70 percent of an estimated primary surplus of 1.5 billion euros, or 1.05 billion euros, to low-income pensioners, the military, emergency services and police to only 500 million euros.
Samaras didn’t explain why but now one billion euros will be steered instead away from people most affected by austerity to pay bills to vendors for goods and services provided the state, for which some companies have been waiting years for a settlement. Tsipras blasted that too, saying a delay in paying bills had hurt the economy further.
“Far from signaling the end of the memorandum,” the party statement said, the agreement amounts to a “conspiracy between the Troika and the government against the Greek people with the aim of avoiding disaster in the coming elections.”
The deal opens the door for Greece to receive nine billion euros ($12.41 billion) in long-delayed loans as negotiations took seven months. Greece needs the cash to pay a 10 billion euro bond payment in May.
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