18.1.13
After some rather eventful proceedings, the Parliamentary Assembly decided to support the proposal of the three government parties to indict former Minister of Finances G. Papakonstantinou on charges of tampering with a document and misconduct. The 15-member committee must announce its findings by the 25th of February.
In the end 265 MPs supported Mr. Papakonstantinou’s indictment, however SYRIZA’s proposal for indicting PASOK leader E. Venizelos only attracted 124 votes and the Independent Greeks proposal for indicting former PM G. Papandreou garnered 80 votes, while the one for L. Papadimos attracted only 63 votes.
Following a heated discussion over the number of voting ballots that were to be used, in relation to the number of proposals and the question of secrecy, tension rose when 85 of the 124 New Democracy MPs voted in all four ballots, instead of just the one for G. Papakonstantinou. Conversely, all PASOK MPs bar one voted (Theodora Tzakri) for the indictment of G. Papakonstantinou indicating a hard party line. Fotis Kouvelis and his Democratic Left MP voted in all four ballots.
Prior to the vote, the Opposition clashed with the Parliament’s President over the printed ballots. Rather than each ballot referring to each of the four politicians and the charges, the ballots were printed to reflect each party’s proposal. SYRIZA maintained that the confusion could result in not achieving the necessary majority for an indictment. Ultimately though, the Science Office of Parliament greenlit the vote with the existing ballots.
