ATHENS – Main opposition SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance leader Alexis Tsipras, in statements from Zappeion Mansion on Tuesday, demanded the immediate dissolution of the parliament and the holding of general elections within three weeks, as stipulated by the Constitution.

The leader of the main opposition noted that SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance is asking that “the Greek people be the ones to answer directly, and not the potentially blackmailed New Democracy deputies, to the crucial, existential question posed yesterday in parliament: With democracy or deviation.”

At the same time, he announced that “as long as (Prime Minister Kyriakos) Mitsotakis refuses to do the obvious, to ask for the judgment of the Greek people for all he has done against democracy and the rule of law, SYRIZA will not legitimise the legislative work of a government of deviation.”

Tsipras noted that “the now irrefutable evidence of surveillance by the National Intelligence Service with the responsibility of the prime minister, surveillance that targeted the military leadership, ministers, a party leader, MEPs and journalists,” as well as the debate in the Parliament, “create a new situation that no one has the right to ignore”.

He argued that the debate and the outcome of the motion of censure submitted by SYRIZA, “in addition to the prime minister’s guilt, revealed that the erosion of the institutions of democracy, but also the parallel and dangerous erosion of social cohesion, have unfortunately progressed very deeply.”

Tsipras spoke of an “abuse of the rule of law” that “comes to impose and cover up a massive redistribution of wealth in favour of the few and powerful and at the expense of the social majority,” adding that “profiteering, which costs households dramatically, is legalised and protected in the most provocative way”.

He said that “the powerful become more powerful, sky-high profits become the norm, while the social majority, the middle class, the workers, are pushed to the margins of insecurity, poverty and anxiety about the future.”

In addition, he accused the government of being steeped in corruption, “as shown by the continuous scandals of embezzlement of public funds, the orgy of direct assignments and the latest sad revelations about an intertwining of sectors of the state even with organised crime.”