“I apologized, because just as you start by wanting to make a comparison, if I said, for example, that the Minister is the Medea of public education, there probably wouldn’t have been any objection,” said the SYRIZA MP.
“I made a very big mistake and I want to declare it publicly. I made a very unfortunate simile that involved a very high degree of extremeness, failure and toxicity, and I want to be honest about that,” said SYRIZA-PS MP Christoforos Bernardakis in relation to the video in question.
“I apologized, because just as you start by wanting to make an analogy, if I said for example that the Minister is the Medea of public education, there probably wouldn’t have been any objection. But the involvement with a public figure who is one of the most painful cases at the moment in Greek society, creates associations that are negative.
I admit I didn’t appreciate it, I thought it would be a more relaxed message. It was a simile I wanted to show that the minister’s policy “suffocates” public education like a modern Medea can drown her children. Of course because this person is absolutely toxic and this association is truly outrageous. The association with Medea would be more acceptable.
And I want to say that in this simile I make a second mistake, also very serious, I question the presumption of innocence that this person has. I also want to apologize for this, because I am committing a violation of the presumption of innocence. Of course, the channels that have made decisions 4 months ago blame me. That’s a different discussion anyway, I have to apologize for that as well.
I made the mistake of trying to make a simile that was immediately understandable. I did not mean to imply that the minister identifies with a woman accused of such crimes, of course. That’s why I didn’t say it’s the same as the name, I put a question mark first and said Pispirigou of public education with a question mark. Don’t make excuses, it’s clear that I made a very big mistake,” said Mr. Bernardakis.
Asked if the official opposition party was affected by the specific event, Mr. Bernardakis replied “I did a damage to SYRIZA, in the sense that even for a while the discussion was shifted from the bill”.
To the question of whether the president of the party will also apologize in the parliament today, he noted “I, for my part, apologized, whether the president will also do so in his speech and how he will handle it I do not know. I am the natural perpetrator and I have the responsibility and I will say it today in the Parliament, that I take the individual and political responsibility of this mishap”.
“I don’t think there is a question of deletion, but I can’t answer that,” he said in response to a related question.
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