ATHENS – Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s government said billions of euros in subsidies to help Greek households wracked by soaring electric bills and energy costs doesn’t mean he will call early elections in hopes of gaining more support.

Alternate Interior Minister Stelios Petsas delivered that message through SKAI TV in an interview in which he said that elections “will take place at the end of its four-year term,” which would be July of 2023.

With more aid packages expected in June and July, which could be retroactive to the period from December, 2021 to May this year, or a permanent cut in the bills from July, the government would be in a strong position to gain popularity.

He also noted that the government isn’t allowing energy providers to rake in cash from windfall profits and that it planned to require them to return 90 percent of the gain to offset the costs exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Only our government did it and Italy at 25%, no other European country,” he said, Mitsotakis’ request for the European Union to provide bloc-wide help for the 27 member states being ignored.

The major rival SYRIZA, which was routed by Mitsotakis’ New Democracy Conservatives in July, 2018 elections after a 4 ½-year reign, keep calling for snap polls despite trailing by 8.5 percent in the latest surveys.