Political developments in Greece ahead of next month’s snap election – the third time voters will head to the ballot box in 2015! – turned surreal over the weekend, with one top SYRIZA MP threatening to commit … suicide, while former leftist comrades continued their “civil war” over the airwaves.
The first case refers to noted attorney Alexis Mitropoulos, who specialized in labor sector class-action suits and multiple television appearances before being elected to Parliament on SYRIZA’s ballots and eventually serving as deputy Parliament president. The resurgent case involving a legal fee of one million US dollars that Mitropoulos allegedly failed to declare on a past income tax return generated the furor.
Not to be outdone, another top MP from the Independent Greeks’ (AN.EL) party, leftist SYRIZA’s coalition partner in its seven-month reign, refused to state how much money was handled by an offshore company he’s accused of setting up to handle his “intellectual rights” on Cyprus.
Pavlos Haikalis is well-known local sit-com actor and comedy performer when not serving as a Parliament deputy and as a … deputy labor minister in Alexis Tsipras’ government for a month or so recently.
The case appears as a major stumbling block for Haikalis’ continued presence on the rightist-populist party’s ballots in upcoming elections.
On his part, Mitropoulos demanded an apology from the television station during a live appearance on Saturday evening during Mega television’s prime-time newscast, threatening even to commit suicide.
His phone-in during the newscast (in Greek):
He’s also demanded from Minister of State Panagiotis Nikoloudis, who held the anti-corruption portfolio in the outgoing Tsipras government and retained the post in the current caretaker government, to tell him who requested that a relevant prosecutor send the alleged tax evasion case to the Supreme Court. Mitropoulos also said that a fine against him has been suspended.
Instances of alleged corruption and wrongdoing involving serving deputies (and ministers) are by law referred to the high court instead of lower criminal courts, given that Greek lawmakers still enjoy a controversial “immunity” from prosecution while in office.
An emotional Mitropoulos, who has previously said the case is void due to an expiration of the statute of limitations, demanded that Nikoloudis provide answers over the re-emerged case against him, whereas he apologized to recently resigned PM Tsipras over his (Mitropoulos’) quips about a “leftist Thatcherism”.
Mitropoulos has called a press conference for Monday morning, a development that makes the suicide threat appear as remote, at least over the weekend.
TV ‘duel
In another on-air “duel” between former comrades in SYRIZA, Rachel Makri and Theano Fotiou, the latter left the television studio in a huff, before charging that the former, Makri, changed three parties in less than a year (AN.EL, SYRIZA and now the Popular Unity). The response, which caused Fotiou’s departure, was Makri’s condemnation of the third bailout memorandum signed and presented to Parliament for ratification.
The moment Fotiou, who served as a deputy minister in the now defunct Tsipras government, abruptly departs the SKAI-TV television studio.
