Main opposition New Democracy (ND) leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis stayed “on message” in an interview with Financial Times this week, stressing that if elected as the next prime minister in the thrice-bailed out country he’ll push for more structural reforms to restore Greece’s credibility.
The pro-market Mitsotakis and his center-right ND party are comfortably leading once radical leftist SYRIZA party – the dominant partner in the current “strange bedfellows” coalition government – in all mainstream opinion polls over the year and a half. General elections must be held in Greece no later than October 2019, with current PM Alexis Tsipras repeatedly promising to stay in office for the very last hour possible.
“It’s not just a question of consolidating fiscal policy because, if anything, fiscal policy has been too tight. It is also a question of really believing in implementing structural reforms, making Greece more competitive, changing the overall business climate, bringing in significant amounts of foreign investment but also mobilizing domestic investment,” FT quoted him as saying.
In an article entitled “The ex-McKinsey consultant tipped to be next Greek PM”, Mitsotakis cited two landmark privatizations that a ND government – if elected – will extricate from a current web of legal disputes and bureaucratic “red tape”, namely, the Hellenikon real estate development project in southeast coastal Athens and a divisive mining concession (Skouries) in northern Greece held by Canadian multinational Eldorado Gold.
