Three weeks after the collision between two trains that killed 57 people in Greece, Greek rail traffic returned to normal yesterday. He returned just a day after conservative Prime Minister Kiriakos Mitsotakis confirmed the country would hold elections in May, a month earlier than expected, at a time when his popularity is plummeting as a result of an accident that has sparked the biggest protests in Greece since the financial crisis.
“I can definitely tell you that the elections will be held in May,” Mitsotakis announced in an interview with Alpha TV, the first since the collision, on February 28. Despite the fact that the president had until July to call the elections, it is most likely that they will be held on May 21. “My goal is to win the elections again, and I think we will achieve it”, wished the leader of the New Democracy party.
But Mitsotakis will have it more difficult than expected. The possibility of the Greeks voting on April 9 was considered, but it was ruled out due to the proximity to the worst railway tragedy in Europe in the last decade. Although it continues to lead the polls, the latest polls give New Democracy three points over the left-wing Syriza, half of what it was before the disaster, and when it was already in the eye of the hurricane due to a scandal of wiretapping politicians and journalists Two years ago, he was ahead of him by 20 points.
Greece has experienced mass demonstrations in 75 cities these weeks. In Athens, up to 60,000 people, according to some media, took to the streets to call the Government “murderers” and demand responsibility for an accident with victims who were mainly university students returning home after a weekend long Some banners read “Notify me when you arrive”, the last messages parents sent to the youngsters. What began as a student protest ended with dozens of universities occupied, a general strike called by the main unions, with the ferries connecting Athens and Thessaloniki tied up at ports or urban transport stopped. “Our dead, your profits”, said another slogan, denouncing the years of cuts to public services in the country.
At first, Mitsotakis attributed the accident to “human error” – the first accused was the station manager, who admitted that he had made a mistake – but after the wave of indignation he had no more no choice but to step back and apologize for the “disastrous state” of the railway infrastructure, with serious safety problems, and promise absolute transparency to clarify the responsibilities. Now the conservative government accuses Syriza of delaying improvements to the network under Alexis Tsipras, and a parliamentary commission is investigating why a contract signed in 2014 by the state-owned railway company to install · to implement a series of automated safety measures in the section where the accident occurred.
