ATHENS – He lost the May 21 first round of elections by 1,233,360 votes in finishing 20.72 percent behind the then-ruling New Democracy but SYRIA-Progressive Alliance leader Alexis Tsipras said he can make a comeback in the June 25 second ballot.

He didn’t explain how but speaking in Chalkida during his campaign he said he was confident the results could be overturned as he outlined his policies without resorting to the usual shots he took at former premier Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

“We are here to listen to the citizens, but also to submit our proposals. Because we have a tough fight ahead of us, but you’ve known for years now, that our main characteristic is that we don’t give up. That we fight with determination even in the most difficult moments. We do not back down, because at the top of our thinking is the fact that society is facing a great risk – not party interests,” he said, reported the state-run Athens-Macedonia News Agency ANA.

His first campaign focused on attacking Mitsotakis over a surveillance scandal, a train wreck that killed 57 and high costs for families but this time called on his believers to “address pensioners and tell them that their pensions have much less power than in 2019.”

That was in reference to his last days of a 4 1/2-year reign in which pensions were held down and he didn’t mention that Mitsotakis raised them for the first time in 12 years, since before a long economic and austerity crisis.

He also urged followers to “tell small and medium-sized businessmen that it is a lie and propaganda that SYRIZA will increase social insurance contributions: SYRIZA will give you a settlement of your debts.”

That contradicted a statement by one of his former ministers just ahead of the previous elections that said SYRIZA would raise social security taxers on freelancers, a key voting bloc for them.

“Let’s address the 700,000 households whose property and homes are threatened by auctions as their mortgage loans were transferred from the banks to the vulture funds,” he said of their plight.

That was over banks and collection agencies foreclosing on homes although during his run in office he broke his vow not to let a bank take a single home through foreclosures and to protect homeowners undergoing austerity measures.