Everything's "in play" for the Parliamentary Group

The pace of today’s events is rapid and as it seems it is highly likely that the intra-party developments will precede the reshuffle.

A text has already been issued, at Ms Vaso Papandreou’s initiative, signed by 30 MPs so far. Following this initiative, the meeting of the PASOK PG has been scheduled for 16:30 pm this afternoon.

PASOK’s Dimitris Lintzeris characterized the situation as a “lack of governance” in the country and requested of top party members that they rise to the occasion and assume their responsibilities, stating that the country cannot be governed.

The Karditsa PASOK MP, adopting the call for convening the Parliamentary Team of the Party, stated: “For eighteen months we have been going from bad to worse. I will not give my vote if I am not convinced that we are going to pull through and remain accountable to the people who voted for us.

It was preceded by the resignations of Floridis and Nasiokas and their harsh statements concerning the government and the PM. The two now-former MPs will not become independent but are handing over their seat to the party.

Nasiokas, announcing his resignation from the parliament podium, said: “It is the least I can do to reverse the current dead end in the political system”, and criticized the leaderships of the two major parties for continuing their actions “driven by populism”. He announced the gathering in Larisa, in order to hand over his seat to his voters.

“I honor our movement and its struggles, but in a particularly crucial moment for the country, the National Duty was defeated by leader and party interests. So, fully aware of these critical moments, I submit my resignation as a member of parliament”, Floridis stated in his letter.

The Kilkis MP is blaming all parties for the failure to achieve a basic level of understanding to address the climactic national crisis because, as he said, “the character of single party efforts, even by persons enjoying general acceptancve, is unable to complete today’s difficult task” and elections, “although an established and indispensable democratic means, are posing a serious threat to the economic viability of the country at this particular moment”.

Specifically, Floridis is blaming the government for the “wrong choices on the economy and the state, weakness in the overall planning, an obviously unequal and unfair distribution of burdens and unprecedented inefficiencies”. As for New Democracy, he says, “with unprecedented choices for a conservative party, and following the worst opposition standards, they invested in damaging the government, risking the destruction of the country”. “These past few days, some initiatives for a nationwide conciliation in order to have political stability, created the impression that it could have been achieved. To this direction ONLY a transitional coalition government formation could have made a contribution, with the necessary participation of the two major political forces. Unfortunately, their leaders proved unequal to the national circumstances once again, in a politically unforgivable way. Instead of the National Assembly, we were dominated by the logic of partisan pretense, of political pretensions, ulterior motives and partisan pressures. There was no worse way to certify the end of a worn-out and outgoing political system”.

Floridis’ post will be filled by Kilkis prefecture runner-up Giorgos Fraggidis.