Another PASOK MP Quits The Party

PASOK Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos, facing a challenge from rebels unhappy with his unrelenting support for austerity measures and handling of a list of Greeks with secret Swiss bank accounts when he was finance minister, has lost another member.
Christos Aidonis, 50, a former deputy health minister, quit the party as he criticized the government’s handling of the bank list, leaving PASOK with only 24 members, a loss of nine from when Venizelos joined the government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, the New Democracy Conservative leader. The tiny Democratic Left makes up the third partner in the wobbly coalition.
PASOK had lost eight members since the government was formed in June, 2012 between ejections and defections and Venizelos will have to defend his management of the party that is hovering at about 6 percent in the polls when it holds a congress in February.
The major opposition Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) party also wants Parliament to involve him in an investigation into why he didn’t check a list of 2,062 Greeks with $1.95 billion in deposits in the Geneva branch of HSBC for tax cheats.
Aidonis’ departure leaves the coalition government with only 163 seats in the 300-member Parliament, down 16 since the administration began and further weakening its stance as new austerity measures demanded by international lenders are kicking in.
“I’m leaving PASOK’s parliamentary group and becoming independent,” Aidonis said in a letter sent to the Parliament speaker. “PASOK and the three-party government cannot operate as a shield protecting politicians who handled the list from being investigated.” In a recent statement on Facebook, he said that, “Those who believe that there is unlimited time for an endless discussion over the regeneration of the party only become accessories to its decline.” He said, however, that he would continue to back the three-party government.
His departure comes after Democratic Left leader Fotis Kouvelis, expelled two lawmakers for backing a probe into Venizelos. The coalition doesn’t want Venizelos investigated. If the Socialist leader can’t hold his party together amid calls from some members who want to leave the administration, the government could fall.
So far, the investigation into the bank list has involved only former finance minister George Papaconstantinou, who Venizelos booted from PASOK after the revelation that the names of three of Papaconstantinou’s relatives had been removed.
Parliament is expected to vote as early as next week on whether to investigate Papaconstantinou and Venizelos as well as two former prime ministers, former PASOK leader George Papandreou, and interim premier Lucas Papademos, over their handling of the list.
(Sources: Reuters, Kathimerini)