\u201cSince 2016, the party <\/b>of Mr. Mitsotakis <\/b>has held a lead <\/b>of more than ten points<\/b>, and it has remained that way ever since,\u201d said Alexis Tsipras to Antonis Stroiter.<\/b> <\/p>\n
Except that with this statement he did not refute <\/b>his political opponents. He refuted <\/b>his\u2026 own words.<\/b><\/p>\n
Because if indeed the New Democracy <\/b>had been consistently <\/b>leading for a decade <\/b>by a double-digit margin,<\/b> then how can it be explained that shortly before the 2019 European elections, he asserted that \u201cthere isn\u2019t even a one-in-a-million chance that Mitsotakis will win\u201d? <\/b>And he didn\u2019t say this in a casual conversation. He said it publicly<\/b>, with absolute certainty, the fearless one<\/b>. He said it to Antonis Stroiter before the European elections <\/b>in May 2019.<\/b> He said it again a month later on Star <\/b> ahead of the national elections in July 2019.<\/p>\n
Somewhere there is a lie<\/b>. Either then or now. It\u2019s impossible for both to be true.<\/b><\/p>\n
If in 2019<\/b> he truly believed that Mitsotakis <\/b>had no chance of winning<\/b>, then his narrative from yesterday about a consistent lead falls apart. But if he is telling the truth today and New Democracy did indeed have a steady double-digit lead, then in 2019 he was deliberately misleading the public.<\/p>\n
And that is the real issue here. It\u2019s not whether the margin was seven or ten points<\/b>. It\u2019s that Alexis Tsipras treats the truth like play-dough<\/b>. He shapes it each time to suit the circumstances. He likes fairy tales <\/b>, as he has stated himself. The power lies in the fairy tale. <\/p>\n
Exactly the same thing happens with the polls<\/b>. For years, they were tools of manipulation<\/b>, with flawed samples, unreliable, and biased. \u201cThe only poll is the ballot box<\/b>,\u201d he would say at every opportunity. Suddenly, however, because two companies are showing better numbers for his new party, the polls have become gospel. Now he cites them as irrefutable proof that he is returning as Kyriakos Mitsotakis\u2019s sole rival.<\/p>\n
The polls haven\u2019t changed. What has changed is their usefulness <\/b>.<\/p>\n
Alexis Tsipras has no problem revising <\/b>his positions. That is legitimate in politics. However, he has a persistent problem<\/b> with memory<\/b>. He believes that citizens forget easily. That no one remembers <\/b>the \u201cnot even one in a million\u201d promise. That no one will compare what he said back then with what he says today.<\/p>\n
Except that politics doesn\u2019t always forgive forgetfulness<\/b>. And the truth has a bad habit<\/b>. It always comes back to expose the one who tried to bend it to his will. And Alexis Tsipras <\/b>has been at odds with the truth<\/b> for years. <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cSince 2016, Mr. Mitsotakis\u2019s party has held a lead of more than ten points, and it has remained that way ever since,\u201d said Alexis Tsipras …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}