Athens, (EFE).- The main opposition party in Greece, the leftist Syriza, presented this Wednesday a motion of no confidence against the government of the conservative Kyriakos Mitsotakis for the scandal of listening to politicians and the military by the secret services ( EYP).
The leader of Syriza, Alexis Tsipras, affirmed in Parliament that the “criminal” wiretapping network was “coordinated by the prime minister himself”, to observe not only the political rival, but also his political friends, business leaders, the military leadership and journalists, in order “not only to have useful information” but to be able to “blackmail” them if necessary.
Today’s is the second motion presented by the opposition against the Government and, like the previous one, it hardly has a chance of success, since the ruling New Democracy party has an absolute majority in Parliament (156 of 300 seats).
Until now, Mitsotakis has claimed to be unaware, much less to order that the secret services – which the prime minister directly supervises after a legal reform approved as soon as the New Democracy took office – had ordered to observe for “national security reasons” (the only assumption in the which is allowed) to a number of people.
Official confirmation of wiretapping
The names of the people in question had already been published months ago thanks to revelations by some media, but until yesterday there was no official confirmation, which allowed the government to dismiss the matter as unproven accusations basically concocted by Syriza.
The scandal has now taken on a new dimension after the director of the Authority for the Protection of Communications, Jristos Rammos, yesterday sent a letter to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Justice, the Speaker of Parliament and party leaders, in which he details the results of his inquiries on this issue.
Rammos obtained the information from the telephone operators who had carried out the wiretaps and had been requesting to inform the Parliament’s Transparency Commission for days, but the Government rejected his appearance in this union, despite the fact that the sessions are confidential, which led him to to opt for this means of information.
In the letter in question, Rammos does not reveal the names, but describes the profile of the people affected in such detail that there is no doubt about who they are.
A large number of people affected
Among the six – there have also been others that do not appear in the document but that Tsipras also mentioned today – include the current Minister of Labor and former head of Energy and Environment, Kostís Jatzidakis, the MEP and now leader of the social democratic party Kinal-Pasok, Nikos Andrulakis, as well as the military leadership, including the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Konstantinos Floros.
«Greek society has lived for six months immersed in revelations about an unimaginable number of wiretaps; immersed in the most extensive and profound deviation from the canons of law that the country has seen since the end of the dictatorship, immersed in an unprecedented scandal,” denounced Tsipras.
Debate on the motion will begin today and a vote is scheduled for Friday night.
The motion comes just months before general elections, the date of which has not yet been announced but expected sometime in the spring, with New Democracy leading opinion polls by an average of seven points over Syriza.
