ATHENS – While Prime Minister and New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis said he will finish his four-year term, major opposition SYRIZA and former premier Alexis Tsipras said there will be early elections.

The next polls aren’t due until July of 2023 but Tsipras said he believes that Mitsotakis, despite denials, will call snap polls and that the premier “has decided to escape before winter comes to avoid the consequences of a catastrophic policy for which it is responsible.

“The sooner the elections are held, the better it will be for the country,” the leftist party leader said, reported Kathimerini, as he was touring the islands of Rhodes and Symi, near Turkey’s coast.

He told the local newspaper Rodiaki, while attacking the Greek leader that citizens were paying for the “Mitsotakis clause,” which means that “all the increases and super-profits of the energy producers are transferred to the consumer,” referring to huge increases in consumers electric bills.

While he has also sniped at Mitsotakis’ handling of the economy and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Tsipras denounced Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s bellierence against Greece, Mitsotakis saying he still wants diplomacy but that Greece is ready to defend itself.

Mitsotakis said that the next elections in Greece will “take place in due time, at the end of the four-year term,” warning that “Greece does not have any room to be swept away in a climate of inflationary requests and costless promises,” said Kathimerini about his pledge and policies.

Speaking at the annual awards ceremony of the Athens Chamber for Commerce and Industry, he said the priority for the country was not “toxic party clashes” but “for national rallying against an unpredictable neighbor, for sensible financial management and for continuous interventions to safeguard a smooth and creative daily life.”

“We have a neighbor who is getting angrier as he becomes more isolated,” the premier said, referring to Turkey. “A strong country is one that is a stable country. And it is this stability that is accompanied by continuity and consistency that I am determined to safeguard.”