Deputy minister Panagiotis Sgouridis on Wednesday evening offered his resignation to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, hours after he was quoted as agreeing with the position that the current premier “deceived” farmers with his pre-election promises.
He had qualified the statement by saying that all political leaders in the country followed the same policy on the campaign trail. Sgouridis is assigned the transports, infrastructure and networks portfolio in the current government.
“If you don’t promise, they won’t vote (for you) … When someone speaks to you rationally, he’s not good. But because I’m an old hand at this (politics), and because I don’t mince my words, we must at some point speak the truth. And this is the truth,” Sgouridis said, citing the previous political leaders as following the same strategy.
A laconic statement by Tsipras’ office merely noted that Sgouridis offered up his resignation and that the Greek prime minister will deal with the issue when he returns from a summit meeting in Brussels.
Sgouridis, a long-time cadre of socialist PASOK since the early 1980s, was elected to the Greek parliament several times with that party before switching to the rightist anti-memorandum Independent Greeks’ (AN.EL) party in 2010.
He is one of a handful of AN.EL MPs serving on Tsipras’ cabinet.
