Nikos Androulakis chose to attack the government during his speech in Larissa on Saturday morning.
Androulakis spoke of “administrative failures, the discredit of the welfare state and the increase in inequalities during the five-year government of the New Republic”.
“Five years of Mitsotakis, the national system is collapsingFive years of Mitsotakis, public health is in decline. We see what is happening in our schools. It’s not just the quality of the programs. It’s not just the low salaries of teachers and doctors. Here we see phenomena of extreme violence in schools”, said Mr. Androulakis and added:
“Is there a Ministry of Rural Development? Is there an OPEKEPE? Is there an ELGA? Where, then, did the great reformer, Mr. Mitsotakis, succeed? Tens of thousands of producers across Greece are being held hostage.”
Symbolic stop in Tempe
As he noted, coming from Thessalonica to Larissa, he symbolically stopped at Tempi. “An enormous trauma remained in the subconscious of the Greek people, in their hearts, in their souls. That we still don’t know the truth and those responsible for the crime haven’t paid”, he stressed.
“Our victory against New Democracy will not only be achieved in strategic and programmatic terms, this will also be done in ethical terms”, highlighted the president of PASOK-KINAL and added: “This is the most important thing for me. Because here we have a prime minister in a closed system of power, who had the audacity to call it a “personal state”, to operate in a parastatal, corrupt and clientelistic way, disappointing even the obstinate defenders of New Democracy.”
“I fought to be president” – “I was not taken by any hand from the party’s internal barony”
A few hours before the opening of the intra-party polls, Androulakis insisted on choosing to continue the strategy, stressing that thanks to political autonomy, unity and renewal, PASOK has placed itself at the center of political developments.
“You know very well that I fought hard to become president of PASOK. No small hand caught me, neither from the domestic oligarchy nor from the party’s internal barony. My strength is the simple people of PASOK, who stayed in difficult times and see that our faction has returned”, he concluded.
Prefacing it, the regional governor of Thessaly, Dimitris Kouretas, expressed his certainty that Mr. Androulakis can guarantee unity.