Yesterday’s meeting and the summit clash in the Parliament against the backdrop of the establishment of the Investigative Committee for the Tempi represent a kind of closing of a circle, given that the Parliament is unlikely to come back with new charges and new prosecutions of political figures. With this in mind, but also on the occasion of the noticeable change of climate in the case in question, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who had abstained from all relevant discussions in the past, was present at yesterday’s meeting. And in a politically tough speech, he drew lines and set the political framework from now on.

It is clear, as government sources point out, that Mitsotakis wanted to “set up” what he described as a “cooperation of toxicity“, with the protagonists Mr. Konstantopoulou, Velopoulos, Natsios, and Kasselakis, even drawing an analogy with the recent past and recalling Konstantopoulou’s collusion with Varoufakis and Kammenos and accusing her of collusion with Golden Dawn.

Interestingly, Mitsotakis did not get into the substance of the charge of high treason, refusing to legitimize his accusers and thus make them interlocutors. Hence, he flamboyantly left the hall of the Parliament after the end of his speech, and while SYRIZA parliamentary representative Nikos Pappas was urgently asking for the floor to respond in person to the “Mr. 13-0” smear that the Prime Minister gave him from the podium.

After a long parliamentary debate that has a few… episodes left, Mitsotakis insisted on the distinction between political and criminal responsibility, stressing that in the case of the catastrophic fire at Mati, the New Democracy party highlighted the political responsibilities of the then government,but did not call for parliamentary scrutiny of Syriza ministers. And in this light, Mitsotakis stood on the political deadlock of those forces that attempted to “score” politically in the tragedy of Tempi, turning a collective tragedy into a political crisis.

“Rapture” to Konstantopoulou

Admittedly, the closing of this political cycle could not leave Zoe Konstantopoulou, the person who has emerged in recent months, out of the frame. Mitsotakis aimed at her, but the thermometer rose particularly high in the final speech of the proceedings by Justice Minister Giorgos Floridis. Mr. Florides reminisced about the deeds and days of the president of the Eleftherias Pleiades Freedom Party, bringing up the case of the “violator” who used to drug women by pretending to be a tour guide and offering them Stilnox cheese pies. The justice minister remembered that his lawyer was Ms Konstantopoulou and blamed her for torturing the victims, with repeated adjournments of the trial. Konstantopoulou exploded from the benches shouting “lies”, but ND MPs similarly exploded, with Dimitris Markopoulos shouting “you are not ashamed“;

It is a given that many ND MPs seemed to have reached their tolerance limit with Ms Konstantopoulou. Typical is the case of ND parliamentary representative Noti Mitarakis, who denounced her for violating the etiquette and speaking out by attacking former minister Kostas Karamanlis after his speech as a referent in the indictment. “When the historian of the future, decades later, looks at the extreme times of national discord since the establishment of the Greek state, when he looks at personalities who poisoned the political scene, he will devote many pages to the presence of Ms Konstantopoulou,” Mitarakis said.

Empty seats

Notably, Karamanlis’ afternoon appearance in parliament was made with relatively empty seats in the New Democracy parliamentary chairs, while only two ministers were seated on the government benches. The former minister called on his colleagues to impeach him and laid out the argument as to his actions on the railway having administrative rather than criminal responsibility, and was applauded rather tepidly in his “finale”. The blue MPs did not want a repeat of the scene with the repeated questions because they applauded him warmly, as in the March 2024 speech during the debate on a motion of no confidence against the government.

Flight forward

That said, Mitsotakis is returning to his political program that includes “deliverables” and contact with citizens. Today, he will continue his cycle of tours with a visit to West Thessaloniki, starting from the Derveni Environmental Park, and continuing to the Metropolitan Park, the former Pavlos Melas camp, and the 7th Kindergarten of Polihni, which is being reconstructed through the Marietta Giannakou programme.

At noo,n he will speak to citizens in a square in Abelokipi, while immediately afterwards, he will meet with mayors of Western Thessaloniki at the Municipality of Ambelokipi – Menemeni. It should be noted that the Hellenic Solution had recorded particularly high percentages in the areas visited by the Prime Minister today in last year’s European elections.