After the train disaster, Greece will go to the polls in May

Three weeks after the train disaster in Greece, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced on Tuesday March 21 that the elections would be held next May. His government is weakened by an accident which revealed an older anger of the Greeks towards their leaders.

“I can tell you with certainty that the elections will take place in May,” said the leader of the conservative New Democracy (ND) party in his first television interview since the head-on collision between two trains that killed 57 people on February 28 in evening. He did not specify the exact date of this legislative election which was to be held by July, at the end of the current mandate of his government.

But it paved the way for another ballot in the process if the first does not achieve an absolute majority or if the parties with the best scores fail to form a coalition.

Government criticized for the management of the accident

The Tory, in power since 2019, has been under pressure since the country’s worst train disaster that upset Greeks and sent tens of thousands of angry residents onto the streets.

Because if the accident was attributed to an error by the station master, it also revealed serious malfunctions in the Greek railways, the dilapidated state of the network and the flagrant delays in modernizing it, particularly with regard to safety. and signage. The Prime Minister has also been strongly criticized for his management of this accident, considered calamitous, in particular when he assured from the outset that it was due to “a tragic human error”.

Since then he has worked to rectify the situation by repeatedly asking forgiveness from the families of the victims or by promising absolute transparency in the ongoing judicial investigation to establish responsibilities.

Quasi-general strike

But in the processions which chant “murderers” and demand accountability from the authorities accused of negligence or even negligence, calls for the resignation of Kyriakos Mitsotakis are increasing. On March 8, at the “peak” of the mobilization, they were at least 65,000 in the streets shouting their fed up, including 40,000 in the capital. After work stoppages in several sectors, Greece experienced an almost general strike on March 16 with an almost complete paralysis of transport.

The processions, by their scale, are reminiscent of the major demonstrations in the early 2010s when Greece, shaken by the financial crisis, had drastic savings measures imposed on it by its creditors, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

Many Greeks are alarmed by the decline of public services in a country which, in order to pay off its debts, had to privatize entire sections of its public sector, including passenger and freight rail transport sold in 2017 to the Italian public company Ferrovie Dello Stato Italiane (FS).

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