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Greece’s Governing Party PASOK is Boiling over Austerity
Posted by keeptalkinggreece in Politics
“You are appointed and not elected!” parliamentary group spokesman of PASOK Christos Protopapas told in very angry tone Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas. The anger of Protopapas came as an answer to Droutsas’ criticism against Greek lawmakers. “They should take a parliamentary break after two legislative periods, they should not have free cars” said Droutsas yesterday during a television interview. No wonder that long-time MP and former labor unionist Protopapas saw red. He got so angry that he even turned his anger against George Papandreou saying a prime minister should not appoint ‘gardeners’ in position of ministers.
Not that Droutsas was a gardener before he was appointed minister. The expression was recently used by another governing party PASOK lawmaker criticising ministers who are not elected but appointed.
The atmosphere with the parliamentary group of PASOK is bad. In fact it is boiling. A bit the arrogance of the appointed ministers, a bit the new austerity package, a bit the pressures of voters to lawmakers, PASOK MP’s seems to have been infected by the virus of ‘protesting indignant Greeks . Currently parliamentary group looks kind of the verge of a civil war.
According to newsportal Zougla there is even a (undefined) number of MP unwilling to vote for the middle term loan agreement for the years 2011-2016. However government officials claim that the bad atmosphere is going to be diffused in personal verbal attacks and that at the end all PASOK MP will vote for the so-called “2. Memorandum”.
However, main opposition party, centre-right, Nea Dimokratis, estimates that four of five PASOK lawmakers will openly express their distance from the Memorandum.
Prime Minister George Papandreou has already warned the lawmakers of his own party and his government ministers, that should he lose the absolute majority in Parliament he will call early elections. Papandreou wants parliamentary comfort in governing and not to be hostage of a minority government.
The European part of Greece’s lenders strongly opposes early elections.
According to my very personal opinion, the EU would rather oppose any elections at all – at least until Greece has minimized its debt to less than one €uro!
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