Parliament President Zoe Konstantopoulou, a high-profile Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) cadre, appears to be on a direct collision course with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who she met with on Thursday. The two-hour meeting came after she penned a letter addressed to President Prokopis Pavlopoulos and Tsipras concerning the legitimacy of the bailout negotiations and what she claimed was the blatant disregard of parliamentary procedures, Greek sovereignty and the essence of democracy in the country.
Pavlopoulos replied, in writing, that her letter aired personal opinions and not ones voted on by the Parliament plenum.
Following her meeting she said that “Democracy is on trial, with Greece being the victim.” She pointed to a spirit of “commitment and honesty” linking her and the Greek PM, however, she said that SYRIZA should “enforce the rights of our nation” while she pointed to the need for a “convergence of the left and SYRIZA.”
The outspoken Konstantopoulou doesn’t mince words when it comes to the third bailout, which she views as a betrayal of the anti-austerity platform that brought the radical leftist party to power in January with 36 percent of the popular vote.
She spoke out against the changes in the Code of Civil Procedure that Parliament MPs overwhelmingly approved on late on Wednesday. “The vote is a parliamentary diversion because it is introduced as an intervention by the institutions under the threat of bankruptcy and is set as a prior action. Basic citizen rights for receiving a fair trial are being violated,” she said.
“This violent attack against democracy cannot happen in the context of the European Union. And it cannot happen silently,” she said in the letter she wants the Greek president to send to the EU.
Konstantopoulou is a headache for Tsipras but it is unlikely he will ask her to step aside.