40 possible leaks in parliament

Tens of PASOK and ND MPs are in a state of nervous shock as they are called to balance between party discipline and personal conscience regarding the measures contained in the new memorandum.

The number of MPs of both parties that are prepared to vote against the whole package, or several articles in it, in tomorrow's voting is now approaching 40.

Speaking at the Economic Affairs Committee of the parliament on the part of PASOK Vasso Papandreou, Elena Papariti, Christos Magoufis and Dimitris Kouselas indicated that they will probably vote against.

With the declaration of their stance during the PG meeting and on protothema.gr, the following MPs hinted they will vote against: Luka Katseli, Mariliza Xenogiannakopoulou, Maria Kyriakopoulou, Yannis Michelogiannakis, Yannis Amiridis, Dimitris Karidis, Stathis Koutmeridis, Takis Antonakopoulos, Takis Dimitroulopoulos, Odysseas Voudouris, Tsetin Mantazi, Yannis Koutsoukos, Christos Katsouris, Theodore Parastatidis, Vasilis Gioumatzidis, Andreas Makrypidis, Haris Kastanidis, Thanasis Economou and Savvas Eminidis.

3 PASOK MPs have already given up their parliamentary seats, refusing to participate in another puzzling voting. They are: Arta MP Pavlos Stasinos, Zakynthos MP Dimitris Varvarigos and Pemi Zouni from Athens B. In all these 3 regions PASOK displayed single-digit figures in the recent polls.

Those who have resigned will be replaced by their runner-ups before the crucial voting, whose attitude towards the new memorandum (which they would not have had time to read) remains unknown.

But there are quite a few MPs from the ND side who are deviating from the party line regarding the voting.

Speaking at their PG meeting, the following MPs clarified they will vote against: Kostas Markopoulos, Margaritis Tzimas, Dimitris Stamatis, Alexandros Dermetzopoulos, Theophilos Leontaridis, Christos Zois, Maria Kollia, Panagiotis Melas, Spiros Galinos, Kostas Papasiozos, Giorgos Vagionas, Zissis Tzikalagias, Giorgos Papadopoulos and Michalis Vlachos. Kostas Tzavaras, Kostas Gioulekas, Kostas Mousouroulis remain sceptical.

Given that Papademos’ government had a majority of around 255 MPs and as there will be a loss of about 15 MPs from LAOS (Georgiadis and Voridis will probably vote), one should not exclude the fact that votes might be less than 200 in the entire memorandum or some of its articles.

Speaking this morning on SKAI TV, Health Minister Andreas Loverdos expressed his concern that perhaps the Europeans will view with suspicion the passing of the memorandum without a vast parliamentary majority.