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Samaras Plans Post-Easter Election Campaign

Greek Premier Antonis Samaras says he brings stability
Greek Premier Antonis Samaras says he brings stability

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, whose conservative New Democracy party faces a tough test in next month’s municipal and European Parliament elections, is readying an after-Easter campaign that will emphasize recent good economic news as well as upheaval in the main opposition camp, leftist coalition SYRIZA.
It’s been a good April for Samaras even though New Democracy is down in most recent polls to the leftists, but that was before a burgeoning schism in the SYRIZA ranks, where dissidents are calling for a plan to take Greece out of the eurozone if the party comes to power.
Meanwhile, the European Commission’s statistics service, Eurostat, is expected to confirm the government’s forecast of a primary surplus on April 23.
Eurozone leaders have said this could pave the way for a discussion about a possible lightening of Greece’s debt load, with the costs passed on to taxpayers in the other 17 countries in the bloc, having them pay for generations of wild overspending by New Democracy and PASOK governments.
The economic resurgence plays to Samaras’ strength: that he is bringing stability and a looming recovery, whereas SYRIZA, he says, would create chaos and reverse recent gains.
The leftists claim the austerity measures imposed by Samaras’ coalition, which includes the fading PASOK Socialists, are to blame for the country’s plight.
Greece, meanwhile, has a primary surplus of some 1.4 billion euros, 70 percent of which Samaras said would be distributed to sectors hit by austerity, while the government also just floated a sovereign bond for the first time since international bailouts began four years ago to keep the economy from collapsing.
Recipients will be able to apply via the General Secretariat of Information Systems website (www.gsis.gr) and can expect the lump sum to be deposited in their bank accounts within the first 10 days of May, just ahead of the elections.
During a meeting at the State General Accounting Office, it was decided that the handouts will be distributed to as many single-parent families as possible, along with workers who lost their jobs this year.
The sum will amount to 500 euros per unemployed worker and increase by 166.70 euros for each adult family member and 83.30 euros for every child, an infinitesimally small amount compared to how much they’ve lost.
Pensioners have lost 30 percent of their lump sums, and had money deducted from their checks for decades and now kept by the government despite the country’s highest court ruled this unconstitutional, a judgement they are set to repeat concerning pay cuts for the military and emergency workers, according to media reports.
SYRIZA said that Samaras is trying to buy the election. Greeks have lost more than 46 percent of their disposable income in the past four years but the premier said a turnaround is on the way.
However, SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras is now on the defensive because of dissension within his coalition, a motley collection of Maoists, Trotskyities, Leninists, communists, anarchists, ecologists and others.
Leader of the party’s left faction Panayiotis Lafazanis saw his proposal for a plan to take Greece out of the Eurozone rejected by the central committee, gifting New Democracy the opportunity to paint SYRIZA as the coalition of chaos.
 

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