“This government, the government of the Right, the government of the ND, must go. To fall. Let’s end the regime of lawlessness and insult to our Democracy”, stressed Alexis Haritsis, speaking in the Plenary debate on the motion of no confidence against the government.

The president of the New Left called on the prime minister to pledge that he will request the establishment of a preliminary investigation committee so that the judiciary can now decide whether or not Mr. Karamanlis is criminally liable. At the same time, he filed against the Minister of Justice George Floridis saying he must resign immediately after his reports yesterday.

In particular, he said that “the government is accountable for the scandalous management of a national tragedy that led to the death of 57 people.” Commenting on the speech of K. Ah. Karamanlis, Mr. Haritsis said that no one spoke about parliamentary immunity and that, on the contrary, the issue is the law on the responsibility of ministers. He asked the government that “otherwise you want a lot of light to be shed”, why it rejected a preliminary investigation recommendation for the 717 contract. Then he emphasized that “there is also a case file from a lawsuit filed by a victim of the crime in Tempe” and asked the deputies of the ND “who yesterday strongly applauded Mr. Karamanlis”, what will they do with this. He said that Mr. Mitsotakis “cannot hide behind the constant appeals that the Greek Justice will do its job” and that he cannot do it for Mr. Karamanlis “because he is protected by the Ministerial Responsibility Law”.

“All you have to do is to request the formation of a pre-investigation committee and for the Justice to decide whether or not Mr. Karamanlis is criminally liable. So commit today that you will agree to a preliminary investigation recommendation,” he noted. He commented that this is what he expects to hear from the prime minister tonight “instead of him coming to insult our intelligence that some dark financial centers are seeking his overthrow”. “Don’t mythologize society anymore”he said.

Mr. Haritsis commented that “unbelievable” things were heard in the room in the previous days, that it is not a crime, but an accident, while the case is pending in the Court and criminal charges have been brought. “We heard the chilling phrase ‘those who talk about rubbish are for rubbish’. And who said it? The Minister of Justice”. He asked Mr. Floridis the following: “There was a letter from the Prosecutor of the Supreme Court, Ms. Adelinis, to the head of the Larisa Appeals Prosecutor’s Office to investigate every question-complaint of the victims’ relatives, including the one regarding the alteration of the crime scene and the possible loss of evidence, yes or no? A prosecution has been brought against the former regional governor of Thessaly for the larceny, who even invoked the right to remain silent in the Inquiry, precisely because of the criminal prosecution, yes or no?”. “The Minister of Justice intervenes in an ongoing judicial investigation for which a criminal charge has been brought and says that anyone who talks about fraud is rubbish. The behavior is impermissible and unconstitutional. And that’s why the Minister of Justice must resign immediately.”

Mr. Haritsis argued that the government “exploited a falsified conversation to serve its political survival” and that there is no way to escape the relentless questions. He accused the government of “trying to bury the Tempe case” for a year. He said that no one “could have imagined that on the very first day, some people behind the scenes were taking care of the communication management of the tragedy. That someone or some would then do the unthinkable in the early hours. They would take the recorded dialogues from the OSE center and make a convenient cut-and-paste to serve a single goal: to convince that the sole responsibility for the death of 57 people is an irresponsible station master.”

The president of the KO of the New Left asked for clear answers to the following questions: Who gave the order and who took the files from the OSE recorder and delivered them to a friendly media edited? Why since, as the government says, it was known from the first days that the audio was falsified, did the prime minister invoke it? “Since you say you knew it was edited what did you do about it?” “What actions did you take to investigate this illegality? This poaching? Has the OSE been investigated? What was the result? Mr. Terezakis testified to the Commission of Inquiry that he went to the OSE offices with a police officer to take the material from the recorder. However, ELAS in its statement says that the material was delivered to it after two days and not from the OSE offices. Did you do anything about it?’ He further asked: “Was there or wasn’t there a letter from the resigned TRAINOSE CEO talking about tragic deficiencies in the safety systems and warning of the risk of an accident?” Was there or wasn’t there a driver’s license that also warned of the risk of an accident? What did the responsible minister do?” “What did he do about the damaged remote control in Larissa? What did he do about the signalling, that the traffic light was broken and they were constantly running red? What did he do for the secondary center of Charles? What did he do to have increased supervision with a second station master since nothing was working in the systems?”

He argued that “the crime of Tempos and its management by the Mitsotakis government summarizes where Greece is today: at ground zero”, to note that “today’s motion of no confidence is exactly what it is about: a policy that leads the country to ground zero . The combination of economic neoliberalism and the political authoritarianism of the ND has led us there.”

Mr. Haritsis said that the New Left speaks clearly for a modern single public transport operator in the railway. “To reverse the policy of privatization and apotheosis of the market. A single public transport operator now”, he stressed, adding that “it is a necessary condition for transport safety, but also for a developmental state that strategically uses its infrastructure for development and social justice”. He called on the “progressive opposition” parties to support this fair request.

He claimed that “a new social opposition is developing, which resists, claims, fights, demands justice, equality, democracy, collects signatures, demonstrates, creates with its example a rival pole in the government’s policy” and that “the New Left wants to be the catalyst for the necessary change of the political map”. He recalled that on March 6 he invited “the democratic parties of the opposition” to a joint initiative to submit a motion of no confidence, that “we were the first to state clearly that this is not the case: that this government must fall.”

“The Left will be the protagonist of the developments. We don’t play games. We don’t care about them and we don’t get involved in behind-the-scenes deliberations. We do not regard the top parliamentary process, such as this debate, as a meaningless “cockfight”. We do not participate in the degeneration of apolitical rhetorical outbursts, such as the ones we hear from the leader of the official opposition, which in fact only offer a last refuge, a refuge of disorientation to the government”, he commented.