By DORA ANTONIOU

The government is in a hurry to complete the legislative initiative for the protection of the Monument to the Unknown Soldier, announced by the prime minister a week ago.

The issue caused intense confrontation with the opposition parties, which is expected to continue in Parliament. The legislation, as it became known, is about to be filed tomorrow and the government spokesman said it would likely be supported by the prime minister himself. In this way, the government shows how important it considers this legislative initiative. After all, this became clear all the previous days through repeated references from government officials to the need for the government to listen to the request of the great majority, the silent majority as mentioned, for the protection of the Monument.

The prospect of the prime minister speaking out and defending this particular piece of legislation also shows the government’s clear willingness to stand out as championing this choice at a senior level. In fact, government sources state that it will be interesting to record how and with what arguments the opposition parties will position themselves against the legislation.

The government seeks to appear to be defending order and respect for what the monument stands foragainst those who have objections to this choice. There have been previous measurements showing that the vast majority of citizens are in favor of an arrangement for the monument.

It does not go unnoticed that the government representative made special reference to PASOK, showing that the main confrontation of the government will be with the main opposition party: “I want to believe that it will be voted on” he said about the amendment and added: “We have a comfortable parliamentary majority and I want to believe that especially PASOK, which in previous years was not an extreme party, in the protection of the Unknown Soldier, in i.e. protection of a sacred Monument of national importance, this too will be in favor of the amendment, all parties will be judged for their stance in the Parliament”. The pressure on PASOK is not accidental. This silent majority to which the government refers specifically to this particular issue, is the audience of the center of space, that is, the voters, for whom N. D. and PASOK are fighting.

Regarding the content of the regulation, Mr. Pavlos Marinakis stated that “it will concern the monument of the Unknown Soldier and the entire area in front of the monument except for the sidewalk. After the lookouts, the entire area in front of the monument to the Unknown Soldier except for the sidewalk.”

In this space, as he added, immediately after the passing of the amendment, “no protest, no graffiti, no banner, no demonstration will be allowed”.