New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis has vowed that he will not appoint any of his relatives to his cabinet or key state positions if the party wins the next election.
“I know it’s tough and perhaps unfair, especially for Dora [Bakoyannis] who has given so much to the party,” Mr Mitsotakis told Kathimerini of his sister, the former foreign minister.
“But at this point it is an imperative part of the mission I have undertaken.”
He also went on to say that he would like to dissociate the procedure of electing a president from general elections, and that in the case that parliament cannot elect one, that it would be down to the people to make a choice.
Meanwhile he also took the opportunity to raise criticisms of current Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. Regarding economic policies, he claimed that the left-wing leader is leading Greece to a “fourth memorandum” and that he has “kept the country bogged down and made the poor poorer”.
“The claim that we are emerging from the memorandums is the new big lie of the SYRIZA-ANEL government,” and noted that the government has committed to further pension cuts after 2019 with Tsipras set to be remembered as “the prime minister of taxes”.
Among reducing taxes, which Mitsotakis said is a “non-negotiable personal pledge”, he said that the next New Democracy administration would be investigating the controversial arms deal with Saudi Arabia, which was also condemned by Amnesty International.