Resigned PM Tsipras, Syriza's leader, uses the same rhetoric as A.Samaras, the former president of New Democracy who preceded Tsipras as Greece's PM, as far as the bailout is concerned. For both, “signing the deal” was the only choice as the exclusive alternative was “disorderly bankruptcy”. It should be noted that in the public debate, the party members who agree to the bailout terms never use the official term “memorandum”. Instead, they talk about a deal signed “with the European partners in favor of Greece and Europe”; a “mutually gainful deal” as Syriza's members used to call it before it was signed. Additionally, Tsipras, as Samaras back in January elections, talks about “hard negotiations”, where he fought for “the best bailout terms” and “struggled for the benefit of Greece”. The rhetoric is the same, in spite of the difference in time duration between Tsipras's and Samaras's negotiations with the lenders.
Given that both leaders came back from the negotiations with a memorandum, Tsipras is forced to show what could differentiate SYRIZA from ND. He plays the card of the “new governance” as opposed to the two political powers (Pasok and ND) that governed the country after the dictatorship of 1967-1974 and sank it in debt. SYRIZA, never having held any government position before the January elections, claims that it is not responsible for any of the financial and fiscal practices that brought the country to its current position. Addressing his left-wing voters as well as those voters fed up with the previous administrations of Greece, Tsipras says: “We will not let them put into action their plan for a brief left-wing administration parenthesis within the regime of corruption that has been ruling for forty years. […]. Greece will not go back. The Greek people will not let it to do so”.
Meimarakis, the leader of ND appointed by Samaras when he resigned, addresses the traditional public of right-wing voters. A few days ago, Meimarakis accused Tsipras in an unconventional way as far as politics is concerned. He claimed that Tsipras wanted him to be his “aftoforakias”. According to slang.gr, a wiki for greek slang similar to urbandictionary.com, “aftoforakias” is the person hired by a night club so as to be (occasionally) charged. In case of a police control, he is one to be charged in flagrante delicto (aftoforo). That is, the actual owner of the club, even if he happens to be present, is not arrested by police thus getting spared the cumber of being arrested, spending a night at the police department and whatnot. Drawing the analogy for Greece's present state, Tsipras, after having signed the memorandum of agreement, allegedly wants Meimarakis to govern and carry the weight of all the anti-popular measures that must be taken.
That type of phraseology is in accordance to the macho profile that Meimarakis has built in the course of years. He is supposed to be an average man easily relatable to the average right-wing voter. In fact, Meimarakis rather unconsciously uses an analogous semiology to Tsipras' while addressing the traditional public of the Right: the middle and working class voters. Meimerakis calling for a vote for ND, said in one of his public talks: “Hell yeah, it's worth voting for ND!”.
Thus, Meimarakis tries to regain the votes that kept ND away from offices and mainly went to the populist party Independent Greeks (ANEL) and to the neo-nazi party Golden Dawn (XA). On the other hand, Tsipras tries to stop votes from slipping away to the newly founded Popular Unity (LAE) party, and to lesser parties of the Left as well as other parties in general.
Responding to this discourse, F.Genimata, the leader of the once mighty PASOK, claims for the coalition between her party and DIMAR, the role of the “third pole of progressive governance”, the “Democratic Common Front” as she calls it. A balancing force between the two currents of the radical Left and the traditional Right. The same rhetoric is used by the other social-democratic, in principle, party: To Potami. The difference between the two is analogous to the one between Syriza and ND. “To Potami” has never taken offices in government contrary to Pasok and Dimar. Hence, it is justified in claiming that it brings “the new” to politics, although its political decisions are aligned with the ones of PASOK and ND and, lately, SYRIZA, as it also voted for the bailout program. In the words of Theodorakis, the leader of To Potami, people should support his party “so that a new, clean player enter the game”.
LAE takes itself outside of this kind of public debate. Having being formed by former Syriza MP's who denied to vote for the bailout program in parliament and by some minor leftist parties such as Aran and Aras, LAE promotes itself as a representative of the OXI in parliament. Its rhetoric is quite similar to SYRIZA's before the January elections but bolstered by the legacy of a very recent referendum that disclosed the disagreement of the majority of the Greek people to the bailout programs by 62%. In P.Lafazanis' words, “the NO to memoranda will win elections too”. Trying to appeal to young voters LAE's leader adds that “our youth said the big NO at the referendum. It is the youth as a pioneer that will sweep the memoranda, old and new, [..]. The Popular Unity follows the road of the youth”.
KKE, the communist party of Greece, faithful to its arguments, at least from the beginning of the bailouts era, talks about “struggling against the memorandum that renders the people bankrupt, opening the way for a definite disposal of anti-popular deals-memoranda”. Although KKE substantially differs from LAE, in not having held any government office for the last 26 years, their arguments may appeal to left-wing voters disappointed by the U-turn of SYRIZA as far as the bailout is concerned.