The government managed to pass a controversial bill through Parliament last night, which essentially acted as a vote of confidence. The only ‘casualties’ for the government were PASOK’s spokesperson P. Koukoulopoulos, who realized his threat of voting against an article on the abolition of the Municipal Police and former President of Parliament Apostolos Kaklamanis, who had previously announced that he would not support articles that have been declared unconstitutional by Parliament’s Science Council. New Democracy MP D. Kyriazidis was not present due to a serious family issue
As expected, SYRIZA and ANEL requested an individual vote, with the government passing all critical articles with 153 votes (152 in the case of the Municipal Police. DIMAR supported articles 14 and 30, which refer to tax exemptions and calculating minimum tax. Despite the support though, DIMAR’s president Fotis Kouvelis chose to abstain from the vote.
Prior to the vote, there were rumors of MPs objecting and pressuring Ministers to carry out changes to a number of articles, in order to ensure a positive vote. The tension was rather high throughout the proceedings, with PASOK’s secretary T. Baltakos claiming that “anyone who wants can not vote and we will have elections in August”, in response to Mr. Koukoulopoulos’ position. The next critical vote for the government will be the controversial NERIT bill on the 19th of July, after discussing the possibility of forming an inquiry committee for ERT.
