Greece will hold general elections next May. This was announced by the Prime Minister himself. Kyriakos Mitsotakis during his first interview since the railway accident last February, in which 57 people died and after which the protests against his government have multiplied.
polls show a notable drop in voting intention for New DemocracyRight now in the government. The demonstrations of the last days show a clear discontent for the already proven lack of adequate security systems in the railway network.
“I can definitely tell you that the elections will be held in May,” Mitsotakis said in the interview with Alpha TV.
Although the legislature ends in June, it has long been expected that the elections will be held in May, Probably on the 21st. “My goal is to win the elections again and I think we will achieve it,” said the head of the New Democracy party.
The latest polls give New Democracy three points over the leftist Syriza, half that before the incident.
The conservative government has accused Syriza of having delayed improvements to the rail network when it was in power (2015-2019). A parliamentary commission is investigating why the so-called “717 contract”, signed in 2014 by the state railway company (OSE) to install a series of automated security measures on the Athens-Thessaloniki section, where it occurred, has not yet been fully executed. the accident.
Mitsotakis initially maintained the thesis that the accident was due to human error and, for now, four railway employees have been chargedincluding the station manager who put a passenger train and a freight train on the same track that ended up colliding.
Faced with pressure on the street, Mitsotakis ended up apologizing and recognizing the lack of security systems in much of the rail network.