Three weeks after the train disaster in Greece, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced on Tuesday that elections would be held in May as his government is weakened by an accident that revealed a long-standing anger among Greeks against their leaders.
"I can tell you with certainty that the elections will take place in May," said the leader of the conservative New Democracy (ND) party in his first television interview since the head-on collision between two trains that killed 57 people on February 28 in evening.
He did not specify the exact date of this legislative election which was to be held by July, at the end of the current mandate of his government.
But it paved the way for another ballot in the process if the first does not achieve an absolute majority or if the parties with the best scores fail to form a coalition.
"A second ballot could be necessary. It is very likely", he underlined on the private channel Alpha, three weeks to the day after this train accident, the worst that Greece has known.
The conservative, in power since 2019, has been under pressure since this disaster which upset the country and brought tens of thousands of angry Greeks to the streets.
Because if the accident was attributed to an error by the station master, it also revealed serious malfunctions in the Greek railways, the dilapidated state of the network and the flagrant delays in modernizing it, particularly with regard to safety. and signage.
The Prime Minister has also been strongly criticized for his management of this accident, considered calamitous, in particular when he assured from the outset that it was due to "a tragic human error".
Since then, he has worked to rectify the situation by asking forgiveness on several occasions from the families of the victims or by promising absolute transparency in the judicial investigation in progress to establish responsibilities.
But in the processions which chant "murderers" and demand accountability from the authorities accused of negligence or even negligence, calls for the resignation of Kyriakos Mitsotakis are increasing.
On March 8, at the "peak" of the mobilization, they were at least 65,000 in the streets shouting their fed up, including 40,000 in the capital.
After work stoppages in several sectors, Greece experienced an almost general strike on March 16 with an almost complete paralysis of transport.
The processions, by their scale, are reminiscent of the major demonstrations in the early 2010s when Greece, shaken by the financial crisis, had drastic savings measures imposed by its creditors, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
"The demonstrations after the tragedy in Tempé are comparable to those of 2011", judges the Public Issue institute in a recent analysis.
Many Greeks are alarmed by the decline of public services in a country which, to pay off its debts, had to privatize entire sections of its public sector, including passenger and freight rail transport sold in 2017 to the Italian public company Ferrovie Dello Stato Italiane (FS).
The latest polls taken after the accident show that the gap is narrowing in voting intentions between New Democracy and the radical left Syriza led by Alexis Tsipras, Kyriakos Mitsotakis' predecessor.
With between 28.5% and 30.2% of voting intentions, the ND is only ahead of its main rival by 3.5 to 4.1 points, according to the institutes.
Young people, especially students, find themselves at the head of the discontented people, while the media and analysts believe that they have often been sacrificed over the past ten years.
The daily Kathimerini recently referred to "the bankruptcy and pandemic generation" about those under 25 who are also hit by unemployment.
During his mandate, Kyriakos Mitsotakis was also singled out for attacks on freedoms, particularly of the press.
He is also at the heart of a telephone tapping scandal which affected hundreds of personalities, including the leader of the socialist party Pasok-Kinal.
Athens has always denied having used the Israeli spyware Predator.
03/22/2023 00:09:12 - Athens (Greece) (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
