ATHENS – A group of 64 people from the sectors of culture, economics and academia said voters in the May 26 elections for Greek municipalities and the European Parliament should reject candidates of the ruling Radical Left SYRIZA they said have “faked progress.”

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his cohorts plummeted in polls after he spent four years reneging on anti-austerity vows and now is claiming credit for bringing a recovery without mentioning his backtracking.

The group said Tsipras has hypocritically said he’s brought Greece back from a nine-year economic crisis but that he has really imposed “a plan of extended dependence by the working class on handouts and (state)  appointments,” its open letter said.

“The country is failing where other societies are resolving their problems. The distance separating us from the developed world keeps growing every day,” it added, saying that Greece is stuck with |pressing structural problems that cannot be solved while we remain stuck politically in an outdated entrenchment of left and right.”

The 64 signatories accuse the government of being responsible for the “divisive political climate,” of intervening in the work of justice, of persecuting political rivals and of attempting to manipulate the media, said Kathimerini.

Tsipras implemented an avalanche of tax hikes, including raising the corporate rate to 29 percent, but now is promising handouts and tax hikes in what political rivals said is a transparent attempt to buy votes for the May 26 polls and general elections later this year.

With the major opposition New Democracy seeing its lead shrinking after the handouts, the group said Greece needs a government that will help rebuild the “shrinking middle class,” reduce overtaxation, support business and exports, purge the public administration of political interference, uphold the independence of the judiciary, improve public healthcare and education, and take steps to reverse current demographic challenges.

Among the signatories are historian Thanos Veremis, professors George Pagoulatos, Stathis Kalyvas and Panagiotis Tsakloglou, filmmaker Sotiris Goritsas, actor Constantinos Markoulakis and writer Christos Chomenidis.