Greece's Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis lashed out at the Greek Left Alliance (ELAS), the new political party presented on Tuesday by former left-wing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, reports "Kathimerini".
"What can I say about the name? "I suppose he left EAM because of Polakis," Mitsotakis said, referring to SYRIZA MP and former minister Pavlos Polakis.
EAM was the communist resistance movement formed in Greece during World War II, while ELAS was its military wing, an organized partisan force that fought against the Axis occupation.
The choice of the name ELAS, which is also the acronym for the Greek police, attracted the attention of analysts and provoked mixed public reactions.
Polakis, who was deputy health minister in Tsipras's government, severed ties with the former prime minister and was seen by analysts as a possible contender for the SYRIZA leadership after Tsipras' political comeback as an independent force. However, the party recently expelled him from its parliamentary group following escalating tensions over his criticism of the party's current leader, Sokratis Famelos.
Mitsotakis' criticism of ELAS was not limited to the name.
"I respect all my political opponents. Tsipras was prime minister and was appreciated as a prime minister. He was the leader of the opposition and was appreciated for that in the 2023 elections," Mitsotakis said. Now he will also be appreciated as the leader of a party that has left no real mark - regardless of whether that party is SYRIZA under a new tax ID number."
"There is one common ground across the entire opposition and among all the parties that are being formed: to remove Mitsotakis as prime minister," he said. This does not represent an alternative political proposal. This is the structural problem of the opposition," the prime minister said.