Zoe Konstantopoulou launched a fierce attack on Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and the New Democracy parliamentary group during a parliamentary debate on Tempe, listing 57 reasons—one for each victim of the disaster—why she believes the government should step down.
The leader of Course for Freedom accused Mitsotakis of showing “tragic contempt for society” in his speech, criticising the enthusiastic applause from his party’s MPs. “You stood up and applauded Mr. Mitsotakis, just as you stood up and applauded Mr. Karamanlis—the accountable and guilty Mr. Karamanlis of Tempe,” she said, referring to the former transport minister.
Addressing the prime minister directly, she declared, “You have already lost. And you know it. You have lost because Greek society is against you. You have lost because you are clinging to power. You have lost because you tried to turn tragedy into an opportunity and called your crime a sacrifice. You have lost because, in this crucial moment when you had the opportunity to accept responsibility, you chose to assign blame.
Konstantopoulou accused the government of failing to act on known dangers in the railway system, stating that Mitsotakis was aware of the risks when he appointed Kostas Karamanlis as transport minister. She criticised Karamanlis for his role in the tragedy, saying he had been “unfit, incapable, and lacking the moral integrity to serve in office.”
“You are a copy of Kostas Karamanlis in 2023, the minister who knew that trains were running blindly,” she concluded.
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