ATHENS — The poverty level in Greece was at a record low in 2018 during the SYRIZA government, said party leader Alexis Tsipras on Wednesday, citing figures of the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT).

Criticizing the government for taking the country "back to 2015", Tsipras said in a social media posting that the New Democracy government "took over an economy outside of loan memoranda, with a managed debt, and growth of 12 consecutive quarters, with unemployment dropping by 10 percentage points and with reserves of 37 billion euros in public coffers."

"Today, nearly a year later, it managed to take the country back to the difficult loan memoranda times, in record time," Tsipras said.

He added that Greece "has a prime minister who chooses to underestimate the intelligence of Greeks, when he speaks of 'a wave of optimism' in the economy, instead of focusing on problems and providing solutions."