The censure motion against the Greek government was rejected with 156 votes in a Parliament of 300 late on Sunday night. In favor of the motion tabled by main opposition party, left-wing SYRIZA, voted all opposition parties, a total of 142 MPs from SYRIZA, KINAL, KKE, Greek Solution and MeRA25.
One MP from ruling New Democracy was absent due to a recent accident and hospitalization.
The voting took place after a 3-day debate in the Plenary and a peak on Sunday with the speeches of the party leaders and the Prime Minister.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis did not give any response to criticism by the main opposition and the other four parties. He merely praised the successful achievements of the government and targeted SYRIZA in almost every paragraph of his speech.
“SYRIZA demands that an elected government with 31 months of successful or less successful results be condemned in the midst of a pandemic,” Mitsotakis said among others.
He described the censure motion as a “desperate attempt to staunch wounds within his own party,” the PM said.
To the main criticism regarding the dealing of the snowstorm last week, that was also the main reason for the censure motion, the Prime Minister went so far to claim that they were “caught by surprise because the snow fell during the day and not during the night as usual.” The claim stunned also leading meteorologists in the country.
Former PM Alexis Tsipras called on Mitsotakis to go to snap elections and said that three days of debate have proved “how justified were the waves of outrage and anger that swept through Greek society.”
He accused the government of failing “with a huge social, economic and human cost.” and the PM of “living in a glass bubble” protected by “flatterers.”
“It is time someone tells you what is really happening in the Greek society. Mr. Mitsotakis, you are finished politically but the worst thing is that you are living in your own parallel universe where everything is going well, because it is presented as going well by the mainstream media,” Tsipras stressed.
