Τhe head of the small right-wing party that continues to prop up the mostly leftist Tsipras government, Panos Kammenos, reiterated on Sunday that he'll remain in the shaky coalition government until the Prespa accord is submitted to Greece's Parliament for ratification.
Τhe head of the small right-wing party that continues to prop up the mostly leftist Tsipras government, Panos Kammenos, reiterated on Sunday that he'll remain in the shaky coalition government until the Prespa accord is submitted to Greece's Parliament for ratification.
Kammenos, who holds the defense ministry portfolio, has attempted to walk a political "tightrope" over the past five months, trying to stay true to his hard-line stance over the fYRoM "name issue", on the one hand, while remaining firmly in his Cabinet post and continuing to back the Tsipras government in Parliament.
Both ruling SYRIZA and Kammenos' Independent Greeks (AN.EL) party are struggling in the all mainstream opinion polls over the past year and a half, with the latter now viewed as a long-shot to re-enter Parliament. As such, the prospect of a snap election before ballots must be set up by next October is highly unpopular with SYRIZA and AN.EL office-holders and an influential caste of temporary party-affiliated appointees to the public administration.
Speaking in Thessaloniki at a party meeting, Kammenos said the Prespa accord issue will again be discussed in March, "don't wait for the government to collapse," he added. The career politician is one of seven AN.EL deputies still backing the Tsipras government, which probably could not survive a confidence vote (150+1) in Parliament without their support.
At the same time, he again vilified the closely watched vote in the neighboring Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia's (fYRoM) Parliament on Friday evening, saying eight opposition deputies who switched aisles and joined the coalition majority in order to reach the mandated two-thirds approval (80 deputies out of 120) for constitutional revision were "apostates". He claimed that "six out of the eight" were let out jail only to vote in favor of constitutional revision and again insinuated that bribery was involved.
At the same time, he also turned his sights on the right-of-center main opposition VMRO party in fYRoM, which opposes the Prespa accord, saying it is the successor party of WWII collaborators and dismissing charges that his own rightist-populist party and VMRO are "on the same side".
His comments are diametric opposition from the majority SYRIZA government, which hailed the Parliament vote in Skopje, with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras taking to Twitter to warmly congratulate his counterpart Zoran Zaev.
Kammenos is opposed to any use of the name "Macedonia" for the neighboring country, whereas the Zaev government must revise the constitution to officially change the one-time Yugoslav constituent state's name to "Republic of North Macedonia".