Greek Govt Defeats Censure Motion Over Train Tragedy

Athens, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 29th Mar, 2024) Greece's conservative government survived a censure motion in parliament on Thursday that was lodged over claims it had tried to manipulate an investigation into the deadly train collision that rocked the country last year.

The no-confidence motion was defeated, with 159 deputies of the 300 in parliament voting against, and 141 in favour.

The conservative government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has a parliamentary majority and was widely expected to defeat the motion lodged by the socialist PASOK party on Tuesday.

The motion came after a newspaper report claimed that a key sound recording from the night of the accident, which claimed 57 lives in February 2023, had been misleadingly edited.

Opposition parties accused the government of having been behind the alleged subterfuge as part of efforts to reinforce its chosen narrative that human error was to blame for the head-on collision.

"Public opinion has reached an irrevocable conclusion -- that you are geared towards a cover-up" of the train tragedy, Nikos Pappas, parliament speaker for the main opposition Syriza party, told the chamber Wednesday.

"You are summoned to give answers," he said.

Opposition parties say the government handed out the spliced recording to friendly media.

But Mitsotakis told the chamber: "Never was there an order to conceal. I am looking you in the eyes and telling you this."

In what he has previously called a "national trauma", Mitsotakis said "chronic failures by the state met human error", insisting that he wanted to speak "the truth" to a "distrustful and angry society".