Former financial minister for SYRIZA Euclid Tsakalotos used an international media outlet to 'inform' the Greek people "how he and Alexis Tsipras instrumentalized the referendum and misled the Greek people in order to sign an austerity agreement with lenders that was a far cry from what they had promised," government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis said, accusing Tsakalotos of "blatant political cynicism."
Commenting on statements to the Financial Times, Marinakis said, Tsakalotos admitted "it would be very difficult to achieve a compromise with a good dollop of austerity without a referendum." The spokesperson continued, "He practically admitted, with a 10-year delay, even through the foreign press, the ruthless misleading of citizens by the SYRIZA-ANEL government with the 'theatrics' of the so-called six-month negotiation that led to the dramatic referendum of 2015."
Marinakis added, "Mr Tsipras misled the Greek people, allowing half his government to plan for Greece's exit from the eurozone and the other half to promote a fake referendum, when workers were losing their jobs and the economy was collapsing along with the confidence of citizens and investors."
Their cynicism, along with their destructive adventurism and unparalleled demagoguery, will go down in history as a bad example of political action, the spokesperson noted.
"We call on both Mr Tsipras and Mr Tsakalotos to take a clear stance in Greek media as well: Was the referendum a setup to mislead the Greek people in order to lead them to a predetermined agreement that, in the end, cost another 100 billion euros to the Greek people?" Marinakis asked.