"Take back your signatures to the Troika"

SYRIZA’s Alexis Tsipras implicitly rejected PASOK’s proposal for a government of national unity, underlining that he cannot work with people “who have put their signatures under the memoranda”.

“We clarify that whatever communicative tricks they invent, we will not bring back through the window what the people drove out through the door”, stated mandated PM Mr. Tsipras. At noon on Tuesday, and after receiving an exploratory mandate from Karolos Papoulias, the SYRIZA president made it clear that the popular verdict “nullifies the memorandum and the letters by Samaras and Venizelos”.

The SYRIZA president asked Mr. Venizelos and Samaras to send letters to the EU and the IMF whereby they will withdraw their memorandum commitments.

“if Mr. Venizelos and Mr. Samaras have sincerely regretted the destructive choices that tore society apart, they should send a letter to the EU leaders stating that there are no commitments in effect” stated Mr. Tsipras and called upon ND and PASOK to “stop fooling the Greek people”.

Alexis Tsipras stressed that he will do exactly as he promised before elections, clarifying that he will resubmit the proposal for a Leftist government and present five axes to form a coalition government.

Mr. Tsipras asked for:

- Immediate cancellation of the measures of the memorandum and especially wage-pension cuts.
- Cancellation of laws that eliminate basic labor rights.
- Promotion of immediate changes in the political system (change of electoral law, introduction of proportional representation, abolition of the Law of Ministerial Responsibility)
- Government control on the banking system. He asked for BlackRock’s report to be publicized.
- Creation of an international audit committee to investigate the effects of the Greek debt.

Successive meetings of the SYRIZA president with political leaders began after his meeting with the President of the Republic.

Mr. Tsipras had a telephone conversation with Communist Party General Secretary Aleka Papariga, who refused to meet with Alexis Tsipras stating that her party’s intentions are clear. Shortly after 16:00, the SYRIZA president met with Democratic Left president Fotis Kouvelis.

At 17:30 he will meet with the Ecologists party leadership and at 19:00 with Louka Katseli from tSocial Agreement.
Tomorrow, the SYRIZA president will have successive meetings with trade unions and social organizations. At present there is no meeting set with the leadership of the Federation of Grek Industries. On Thursday, there is information that SYRIZA will invite citizens to a rally in Syntagma Square, something which has not been officially confirmed.

Mr. Tsipras' appointments with ND, PASOK and the Independent Greeks leaders will take place on Thursday.

Papoulias: The country is in need.

“I invited you to entrust to you an exploratory mandate to form a government. I hope you are successful, because the country is in need”, stated the President of the Republic Karolos Papoulias, addressing Alexis Tsipras.

For his part, the SYRIZA president spoke of “a historic moment for the Left and the popular movement, but also a great personal responsibility”.

Continuing, Mr. Tsipras argued that it was more likely that “the exploratory mandate you have given me wou;d have a positive outcome if we had a different electoral law, which does not give the first party a bonus vote for each of its votes, or if we just had a few more votes”, and ended up saying: “The people made their decision. We must respect their verdict and try our best to set the framework itself”.