By G. Kampourakis
[email protected]
The political thermometer in post-bailout Greece dramatically heated up this week following leaks, mostly in pro-government media, that a majority of Parliament MPs – all backing the current leftist-rightist coalition government – will recommend and vote in favor of the establishment of a preliminary committee of inquiry to investigate alleged corruption by five former health ministers.
The “political calculus” at present in the east Mediterranean country includes factors such as general elections now less than a year away, ruling SYRIZA party trailing the center-right main opposition by double-digit percentages points in mainstream opinion polls, a threatened divorce between the two “strange bedfellows” coalition partners over the provisional Prespa agreement and uncertainty on whether pre-legislated austerity measures (another round of pension cuts) will be implemented after all.
The prospect of another Parliament committee being established to focus on corruption in the state-funded health and pharmaceutical sector reportedly affects five former health ministers, all high-profile opposition MPs today, along with Greece’s EU Commissioner, Dimitris Avramopoulos.
The opprobrium by the mainstream opposition focuses on a recent statement by controversial alternate health minister Pavlos Polakis, who told leftist party supporters last month that “if we don’t put someone in jail, then we’ll never seize power in this country”, along with similar statements by deputy justice minister Dimitris Papaggelopoulos, the former head of the Greek intelligence service under center-right prime minister Costas Karamanlis a decade ago.
An ongoing judicial investigation by an anti-corruption prosecutor into alleged kickbacks and price-gouging by the Greek subsidiary of pharmaceutical multinational Novartis, replete with allegations by three “protected witnesses” against a handful of former ministers and prime ministers, was first reviewed by a Parliament committee several months ago and then duly sent back to the prosecutor for further investigation.
The current leaks refer to other probes into alleged illegal hiring at the state-run disease control center (KEELPO), the previously Hellenic Red Cross-owned and now bankrupt Henry Dunant hospital in Athens, exorbitant spending in other health sectors and even a separate investigation focusing on former economy and defense minister Yannos Papantoniou. The latter is now on remand on money laundering charges stemming from alleged bribery taking in a contract to modernize six Greek frigates in the early 2000s.
The leaks this week claim that SYRIZA MPs and a single-digit number of right-wing Independent Greeks’ party deputies will point to more than 23 billion euros in damages incurred by the state between 2010 and 2014, promising to release the findings by the end of this month in “installments”.
Regardless, no indictments – let alone court action stemming from the filing of charges – is expected before general elections must be held in Greece, no later than October 2019. As such, the opposition, particularly center-right New Democracy (ND) party and the MPs from social-democrat PASOK, condemned what they called mudslinging in order to rally voter support.
