Leader of socialist PASOK/KINAL, Nikos Androulakis. submitted a motion for a no-confidence vote against the conservative government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis. The motion tabled to the Parliament early Tuesday evening followed a newspaper report alleging that evidence from the Tempi railway disaster was tampered with.
The motion with the signatures of 83 opposition MPs from left-wing parties SYRIZA, New Left and Freedom Course, is to be backed also by communist KKE and nationalist Greek Solution.
“Mr. Mitsotakis has no other choice. He will come to Parliament to apologize for the actions of his government, for the tragedy of Tempi and for everything else that offends the rule of law and institutions, Androulakis said in his speech at the Parliament.
“Today I am undertaking a critical institutional initiative because the New Democracy government has made a habit of systematically undermining the rule of law in our country. In a series of scandals we experience the same pattern: corruption, cover-up, impunity” the leader of PASOK added.
He said that “in every scandal and government failure” the government’s political choice is “to hide the truth, rather than take the difficult path of responsibility.”
He added that it is a political choice of the government “the impunity and the cover-up, damaging the credibility of the institutions and discrediting politics in the eyes of the society.”
Androulakis recalled that a few days ago in the Parliament during a debate on the train disaster “in front of the empty chair of the Prime Minister and Mr. Karamanlis [Transport Minister during the crash] I pointed out that the tragedy in Tempi symbolizes the institutional, moral and political bankruptcy” of the government.
The three-day Parliament debate on the motion of no confidence voter will begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
The vote on the motion of no confidence is customarily held immediately after the debate concludes but it can be postponed for 48 hours at the government’s request.
However, it is worth noting that the motion comes less than nine months after Mitsotakis won a second legislation victory. Yet the scandals follow one the next, while the arrogance and cynicism of ND ministers and MPs is beyond description.
Even if all opposition parties join forces, the government is expected to survive the motion as it holds a majority of 158 lawmakers in the Parliament of 300 seats.
Τhe motion was tabled just two days after Sunday newspaper TO VIMA alleged that the dialogues between the stationmaster of Larissa and the driver of one of the trains were tampered from another dialogue between the master and a driver of a local train.
The dialogues were leaked to pro-government press just hours after the train disaster that cost the lives of 57 people, most of them students returning home after a long weekend.
