The state budget is not an electoral flyer, yet that is exactly what the government intends to turn it into.

“There will also be the will of the government, which is a scenario under which there will be no pension cuts,” government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos told 9.84 radio.

Then why not follow the will of the government as regards wages, the reinstitution of Christmas, Easter, and summer bonuses, or the hiring of thousands of civil servants?

These rhetorical questions are posed in order to highlight the ridiculousness of the government’s invention of a multi-speed budget, with a selective fulfillment of commitments.

It also shows that the government is still trying to fool pensioners on an issue that is of vital importance for them. It continues to treat issues such as pension cuts – to which it has agreed with creditors in order to complete the second bailout evaluation – as if it concerns mainly its own political survival, rather than the lives of senior citizens.

The government realises that implementation of the measure will not just be a defeat for it, but will result in a real trouncing.

It is fighting tooth and nail to avert this nightmarish prospect, and to that end it is transforming the state budget into a series of electoral pious wishes.

In so doing, it is essentially trying to fool a vulnerable category of citizens, which as a matter of principle no one should dare to fool, for any reason.

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