An annual end-of-the-year verbal “battle royale” in Greece’s Parliament on the occasion of debate and a vote for the state budget was particularly prickly on Saturday, amid the ongoing pandemic and its repercussions, as well as a sudden shake-up on the political landscape due to a leadership change at the helm of the successor formation of once dominant PASOK party.
Highlights of Saturday’s debate, beyond the expected ratification of the draft budget by a majority of ruling party (New Democracy) deputies, were the first demand for early elections by the main opposition (leftist SYRIZA), and controversy of a recently published study on mortality rates and intensive care units in Greece. The latter issue has been prominently raised by the opposition, replete with sharp criticism that the Mitsotakis government did not spend enough to take measures to increase and improve ICUs in the country.
Specifically, 158 deputies in the 300-MP Parliament voted in favor of the 2022 draft budget; 142 voted against.
Failure to ratify the draft budget would have essentially acted as a “no confidence” vote, possibly leading to a snap election.
MPs from the lesser opposition parties KINAL and Hellenic Solution (Elliniki Lysi) voted in favor of defense-related spending, along with an independent MP, i.e. 191 “yea” votes to 109 against.
KINAL is the successor to once dominant socialist PASOK party, while Elliniki Lysi is a populist, right-of-center party formed and led by television pitchman Kyriakos Velopoulos.
In response to a demand that he stepped down and call a snap election, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis dismissed the call by his main political rival, former premier Alexis Tsipras, saying that after 27 months since the July 2019 election, the politician that most would benefit from an early ballot would be himself, and not Tsipras.
In alluding to his party’s continued, and mostly double-digit, lead in various mainstream opinion polls, Mitsotakis said he was often tempted in the past to declare a snap election, “certain of a better result for ND compared to the July 2019 election… But I didn’t take this decision, because we’re not the same; an abyss divides us in terms of responsibility vis-à-vis the country’s needs…”
Mitsotakis also attributed Tsipras’ sudden demand for a snap election to the fact that the latter is concerned of falling behind KINAL party over the roughly next two years until a scheduled general election is held.
One of the off-podium highlights of the day, in fact, was a meeting in a Parliament corridor between Mitsotakis and the newly elected KINAL leader, MEP Nikos Androulakis, with the former congratulating the 42-year-old political leader for his victory, this time in person.
The erstwhile leftist firebrand Tsipras, who swept to power in January 2015 on the back of a virulent anti-bailout and anti-austerity backlash amongst voters, practically exhausted his four-year mandate – short by three or four months – and lost in a landslide in July 2019. Tsipras and his leftist SYRIZA trailed in the polls for all four years and then lost convincingly to ND in local government and European Parliament elections in May and June 2019.
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