ATHENS – He’s behind in the polls – which he discounted – but Greece’s major opposition SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras said he’ll win spring elections and get political revenge on the man who ousted him, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

The Conservatives had been as much as 14 percent ahead, but that lead has been halved in the aftermath of a phone bugging scandal and Tsipras’ relentless sniping as he hopes to return to power after being ousted in July 2019 snap elections.

Tsipras was routed after a 4 1/2-year reign during which he broke essentially all his promises, including imposing austerity measures he swore to reject but agreed to in order to get an 86-billion euro ($90.92 billion) international bailout.

He earlier said he would gain a majority on a first ballot, despite his former government passing a law that takes away a 50-seat bonus in the 300-member Parliament for whomever prevails, making it almost impossible in Greece’s fractured political landscape for that to happen.

Barring a coalition, a second election would be needed that has bonuses of 20-50 seats depending on the percentage of the vote a party gets, although even that might see a winner needing a partner or two.

Tsipras told Proto Thema that he’s certain he will win without explaining why he was so optimistic.

“The main stake of the next day of the elections is if the country will continue to be ruled by those that led it to the largest shrinking of income, to a tremendous redistribution of wealth, and the larger deviation from the post-dictatorship era, or by a progressive government which will have as its main priority the protection of society, of the vulnerable and of the middle class, the sustainable growth and the restoration of the rule of law,” he said.

Tsipras said that there is a prospect for a SYRIZA-PASOK coalition government but on the condition that SYRIZA will win, although PASOK leader Nikos Androulakis has ruled out joining him in a government team.

“This win will be the one that will unlock PASOK in order to move together in a government of broad popular legitimacy because this would be that we will have and the numbers and the moral legitimacy to proceed,” he also said.