ATHENS – Greece’s elections aren’t coming until the middle of 2023 but the campaign talk has already begun with the major opposition SYRIZA saying it fears a rise of the far-right and said the ruling New Democracy is plundering pensioners and society.

Speaking to the leftist radio station Sto Kokkino Thessaloniki, SYRIZA spokesman Nasos Iliopoulos alleged that the government had misled pensioners into not suing for the back payment of pensions.

He said the government indicated that all pensioners would be getting some retroactive payments in a dispute over austerity measures that slashed them but that it was limited only to those who sued.

He criticized the Conservatives for abolishing the “partial return of the 13th pension” when it came into power, referring to what used to be annual bonus payments being given out in benefits.

“The court ruling was issued but we now know the government will not pay … over one million pensioners will not get their back payment,” Iliopoulos said, adding that if SYRIZA comes to power it would reward them.

He accused the government of “coordinating the plundering of the citizens’ incomes,” and that 28 percent of Greeks are at risk of poverty, not mentioning their lives were worsened when SYRIZA was in power.

The “annual increase of natural gas in Greece is 221 percent when the European average rate is 62 percent,” he said, and power providers “made windfall profits of more than 500 million euros ($482.59 million) in September alone.”

With Italy just electing its first female leader, who’s from the far-right, he also said that New Democracy has a hard-core element of rightist extremists, some in Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ Cabinet.

“The only response is to strengthen the Left and here we must therefore discuss what needs to happen and what mistakes it must avoid so that [the Left] wins over working-class people and does not allow the rage and social impasses to be expressed in a reactionary direction,” Iliopoulos said.

He said there were forces in Greece seeking to revive the far-fight after the demise of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn whose leaders, former lawmakers and dozens of members were jailed for running a criminal gang.

He also accused the government of “overinvesting” in a media system that concealed the true problems of society, adding that this strategy will crumble in the next elections, noting a pledge by SYRIZA’s leader Alexis Tsipras to establish a tax-free allowance of 10,000 euros ($9651) for the self-employed, and that it would cost just 160 million euros ($154.43 million.)