The Conservative government is facing a vote of no confidence in relation to a train accident. This is likely to fail.
Mourning and remembrance on the fence of the accident site Photo: Alexandros Avramidis/Reuters
ATHENS taz | Greece's conservative government under Kyriakos Mitsotakis faces a new vote of no confidence. Nikos Androulakis, leader of the once omnipotent social democrat Pasok, took the initiative. It currently has 32 deputies and is the third strongest political force in the Athens parliament, with 300 seats.
The motion of no confidence presented on Tuesday afternoon was also signed by deputies from the main Athenian opposition party, Syriza (36 seats), its latest derivative, the “New Left” (11 seats) and the left-conservative “Course of Liberty” (6 seats). Furthermore, the four remaining opposition parties, in addition to the Communist Party and the three right-wing parties “Greek Solution”, “Victoria” and “The Spartans”, will express their distrust in the Mitsotakis government.
But that won't be enough. Because it is now clear: the 158 members of the conservative New Democracy (ND) will not again renounce their loyalty to Prime Minister Mitsotakis in the vote on Friday night. On the contrary: the motion of censure will strengthen cohesion in the ND before the European elections on June 9.
The new accusations against the Mitsotakis government are serious. The reason for the motion of no confidence is a new episode in the investigation of the devastating train accident in Tempital, central Greece, on February 28, 2023, which is not only relevant from a criminal point of view.
Head-on collision
In the worst train accident in Greek history, an Intercity and a freight train collided head-on after 19 minutes of travel on the same track. 57 people, mostly young people, were killed and many more were injured, some seriously.
The respected Sunday newspaper of Athens. To Vima had reported on Sunday that recordings of conversations between railroad employees on the day of the accident that were released to government-affiliated media immediately after the train disaster were manipulated. This was intended to give the impression that the accident was caused solely by human error.
Specifically: in one of the now controversial recordings published immediately after the accident, the station master gives permission to an anonymous train driver to use a track. As To Vima The station master reportedly spoke to the driver of a previous train and not the train that later crashed.
To hide this, the name of the train driver was deliberately removed. It is not clear who carried out the alleged manipulation. High To Vima However, unauthorized persons could have gained access to evidence that may only be available to researchers. But who are the unauthorized people?
Serious errors
Ironically, Mitsotakis himself said in a televised speech shortly after the publication of the apparently manipulated dialogue that “everything” points to human error as the cause of the accident. This fuels critics that this narrative quickly put forward by the government is only aimed at denying its serious failings until the unfortunate day of February 28, 2023.
What may be even more serious is the large-scale cover-up and cover-up after February 28, 2023, under the auspices of the government. The fact that on March 4, 2023, the accident site was illegally modified by decree, first removing the carriages of the two trains, cleaning the area, excavating the earth and trucking it to private property, and paving the El scene of the accident with concrete not only reinforces the opposition's criticism. It caused pure horror among the victims' families.
Their outrage is fueled by the latest discoveries made by privately hired experts. At the accident site they were able to detect highly explosive chemicals that were apparently transported illegally on the freight train.
This could explain the tragic death of many intercity passengers, who were pulverized after dubious explosions at air temperatures of up to 1,400 degrees Celsius. But all video footage of the freight train has been deleted. The relatives' accusation is that valuable evidence was allegedly destroyed by order of the Mitsotakis government.
Broad agreement
The Athenian opposition also sees it this way. The Mitsotakis government “has no choice, he (Mitsotakis) will come here (to parliament) to justify his actions,” Pasok leader Nikos Androulakis stressed in a speech on Tuesday. Androulakis accused the head of government of hiding the truth.
The relatives of Tempi's victims go one step further. As of Thursday at 12:00 CET, 1,348,113 signatures had already been collected through the petition platform www.change.org for a constitutional amendment that eliminates the immunity of Greek ministers in criminal matters. Never before has a civil society issue in Greece garnered such broad support among the population.
One thing is certain: the Mitsotakis government's list of scandals regarding the erosion of the rule of law is getting longer and longer. It all started with a gigantic wiretapping scandal that became known in the spring of 2022. More than a hundred politicians, businessmen, soldiers and media professionals were allegedly spied on by the Greek secret service EYP.
Prime Minister Mitsotakis had placed the EYP under his direct control. However, he to this day denies having known anything about the eavesdropping attacks. Mitsotakis evidently has no interest in clarifying the matter. On the contrary: Mitsotakis and company blocked, covered up and hid traces, mainly fingerprints. The case remains unresolved.
Lawsuits and criminal charges
Recently, a scandal surrounding the acquisition of email addresses caused a sensation. ND MEP Anna-Michele Asimakopoulou finally had to meekly admit that she had received hundreds of email addresses of eligible Greek voters abroad directly from the Interior Ministry in Athens ahead of the upcoming European elections and that she had specifically written to them . Meanwhile, several dozen lawsuits and criminal complaints have been filed for data protection violations.
“The leadership of the country can no longer be left in the hands of a government that systematically undermines democracy and its institutions,” said Pasok leader Androulakis. The Athenian newspaper Dimokratia chose much more drastic words in its Tuesday edition: “This is a criminal organization.” Right next to the title on page one was the photograph of Prime Minister Mitsotakis.