Collision course over `special purpose gov't'

SYRIZA and PASOK were put on another collision course over talks of a so-called “special purpose government.”

During a press conference on Tuesday, SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras was asked whether he would consider forming a short-lived government to cleanse the political system tarnished by the wiretapping case.

“I won't rule out in advance the possibility that such a discussion will arise the day after the election, but my goal is not a special purpose government,” Tsipras said. His remark was seen as an effort to put the ball in PASOK's court on the matter but his reference provoked the reaction of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

“When I had been talking for a long time about underground communication channels for a government of losers, I could not imagine that a government of losers would become a government of desperate people,” he told ANT1.

Mitsotakis added that “what we are discussing at the moment would be something completely unprecedented for Greek standards, i.e. a government that would have no other job than to investigate the wiretapping scandal. I wonder whether this government would also intervene in the judiciary. Because the scandal is in the judiciary,” he added.

Tsipras' reference was seen to imply that in the event that SYRIZA becomes the first party and PASOK leader Nikos Androulakis insists on calling for another person to become PM, the only scheme that could work would be a short-lived two-to-three-month government aimed at cleansing the political system.

Androulakis told Alpha TV he is against the formation of a special purpose government.

“Mr Tsipras had said a government with a tolerance vote, then he said a government with [MeRA25 leader Yanis] Varoufakis, and now he says something new,” he said.