Athens News Agency: News in English, 06-12-17

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] Papandreou: PASOK ready to win elections

[01] Papandreou: PASOK ready to win elections

"PASOK does not have a defeat scenario. Victory is for us an obligation to the party and the country," he underlined.

One more vote for New Democracy would not be a second chance but "rewarding a bad policy", he added.

PASOK's leader also stressed that he was seeking a "first chance" to put into action the party's vision, which was "the creation of a country that broke new ground, was socially just, open to the world and confident regarding its future".

"We are ready to govern," he said.

Papandreou emphasised that the differences between PASOK and ruling New Democracy were deep, accusing the ruling party of implementing a form of "clientist capitalism" where the "law of the powerful superseded the power of law".

Among the measures for bringing about a fairer society, Papandreou listed further tax reforms that would provide incentives but also act as an income redistribution mechanism, saying that the present system favoured higher incomes at the expense of low incomes.

In other parts of the interview, PASOK's leader strongly criticised the government's plans for the privatisation of Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation (OTE) while referring at length to the party's own proposals for reforming higher education, stressing that these went far beyond modifying article 16 of the Constitution.

At the same time, he expressed support for modifying article 16, saying that it "emasculated the government's right to regulate a very important section of tertiary education".

Papandreou once again made overtures to the Coalition of the Left, Movements and Ecology party for cooperation, calling on the smaller party to submit proposals in the run-up to PASOK's programme conference.

On the issue of changing electoral law, he said that this might be considered if the changes led to greater transparency and independence for politicians but ruled out all discussion of the issue as this was put by the present government.

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