Greek Leftist Syriza Party Calls for End to Austerity Remaining EU Member

MOSCOW, January 19 (Sputnik) — Greek left-wing coalition Syriza will not seek the country's exit from the European Union if it wins snap parliamentary elections this Sunday, but will press ahead with its campaign to scrap austerity measures in the country, the party's parliamentary spokesman told RIA Novosti.

"Syriza is not calling to quit the euro zone or the European Union. Syriza has put forth a plan on how to restore and reorganize the country, cancel the Memorandum [of Economic and Financial Policies] and the austerity policy, take leave of the troika of lenders and follow through on the program to fight poverty that has resulted from the Memorandum, and, of course, to write off a bigger chunk of [national] debt. These are our priorities and we are going to deliver on our agenda," Panayiotis Lafazanis said.

Greece will vote in snap parliamentary elections on January 25. The vote was called by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras after his candidate for president was rejected three times by parliament.

"It will do a lot of good to Greece, the entire region, and Europe. I believe that Syriza's victory will be a turning point for our country … and may also trigger a domino effect within the entire euro space," the party spokesperson said.

Speaking on Greece's cooperation with the NATO military bloc, Lafazanis said the party was aiming at "freeing the country from neo-colonial shackles."

The anti-bailout Syriza party, or Coalition of the Radical Left, won a resounding victory over Samaras's conservative New Democracy party in the European Parliament elections in May 2014, grabbing more than 26 percent of votes and sending six lawmakers to the European Parliament.

Greece's Coalition of the Radical Left, Syriza, will put an end to the state program of privatizing ports and railroads, should it win the upcoming election, Lafazanis said.

"Syriza will stop the program of privatization and 'extrusion' of property out of the country. This is definite. Where the ports are concerned, we will not allow [privatizing] them… This applies to all ports and, certainly, to railroads," the Greek lawmaker said Sunday.

Russian Railways is among those companies bidding on the privatization of a railroad network and a port in the Greek city of Thessaloniki.

"We will reorganize Greece's railroads in a new enterprise, therefore stopping their transformation, and they will remain a state-run company," Lafazanis said.

The politician also expressed certainty that Syriza would gain the majority in the upcoming January 25 parliamentary election.

The left-wing and adamantly eurosceptic Syriza is Greece's second-largest political party. The latest pre-election polls showed popularity for Syriza to be above incumbent Prime Minister Antonis Samaras' center-right New Democracy party by over 3 percentage points.