ATHENS – Leading in polls, New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis urged Greeks to get behind him and defeat the ruling Radical Left SYRIZA to “change Greece” and  “get rid of the worst government of the post-dictatorship era,” in the country’s history.

Launching the conservative party’s 11th two-day conference on Dec. 16, he accused Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of lies and arrogance during a three-year reign that has seen the government renege on anti-austerity promises and brutalizing workers, pensioners and the poor with more harsh measures it swore to reject before surrendering to international lenders in return for a third rescue package of 86 billion euros ($101.09 billion).

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(Live Video Day 2)

Mitsotakis said it is New Democracy’s duty “to unite people, to persuade them that there is another way,” Kathimerini said, adding that he’s ready to work with rival forces, including the new center-left Movement for Change that is made up of the former PASOK Socialists who worked with the Conservatives in a previous government toppled by Tsipras.

The new party also brought in the once-promising but almost-gone To Potami, a collection of academics and intellectuals under former TV presenter Stavros Theodorakis who failed to gain support after being unable to find a focus or agenda appealing to people.

https://www.facebook.com/neadhmokratia/videos/10155227294056275/.

He also indicated that ND is ready to work with other political forces to achieve its aim, reaching out to Fofi Gennimata and Stavros Theodorakis, the leaders of Democratic Theodorakis and Movement for Change leader Fofi Gennimata were at the conference, a likely signal that if New Democracy wins without enough of the vote to rule outright that it will look toward them as partners in a new coalition.

“The (political) space you represent is New Democracy’s historic rival but national necessity has brought us side-by-side, allies against a major challenge,” Mitsotakis said to Gennimata in a lukewarm endorsement and reach-out.

As for Potami, he described the centrist party as a “reforming, consistent and responsible force,” without mentioning that polls put it in a precarious position and unlikely to get enough of the vote to return to Parliament unless it merged with PASOK and the out-of-power Democratic Left (DIMAR) that also was in the New Democracy-PASOK coalition before bolting and disappearing.

(Video day 1, part B)

Former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, unseated by Tsipras in January, 2015 in what was seen as a repudiation of traditional parties who buried Greeks with pay cuts, tax hikes, slashed pensions and worker firings – continued by SYRIZA, said his party will return to power.

“We are united in the face of the victory that lies ahead of us,” he said, although SYRIZA has cut into the New Democracy lead with a blitzkrieg of handouts to pensioners and unemployed youth in what critics said was a transparent attempt to buy votes from the disenchanted and disenfranchised.

(Video day 1, Part A)

Mitsotakis said the key goal of the conference was to “highlight the policies that will secure an exit from the crisis, and to renew our commitment to the Greek people and to the principles according to which we are ready to govern,” without outlining any major specifics on how he would do with the country dependent on international lenders for 326 billion euros ($383.02 billion) in three bailouts.

Elections aren’t scheduled until 2019 but reports said elements in SYRIZA are pressing Tsipras to call snap polls before the effects of more austerity measures hit beleaguered Greeks.

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