Disharmony growing within PASOK
Former Minister Vasso Papandreou continued to stir the waters within PASOK yesterday, accusing the governor of the Bank of Greece, Giorgos Provopoulos, of misleading Parliament and demanding that Finance Minister Giorgos Papaconstantinou explain certain decisions linked to the sale of government bonds. Papandreou, who held three different ministerial positions in PASOK governments in the 1990s and during the previous decade, has already publicly attacked Papaconstantinou, his deputy Filippos Sachinidis and Health Minister Mariliza Xenogiannakopoulou over a range of issues. She continued to cause unease within government ranks yesterday by submitting a question to Parliament, signed by another 14 PASOK deputies, in which Provopoulos is accused of «misinforming» Parliament about details relating to the issuance of Greek bonds between November 2009 and April 2010. The MPs also demanded that Papaconstantinou explain the thinking behind how these sales were conducted. The Papandreou-led intervention did not prompt any response from Papaconstantinou or other members of the government. It came at a time when there are already concerns about the apparent lack of unity within the ruling party. «PASOK is paying for its doublespeak before last year’s general election,» said Socialist deputy Nassos Alevras, one of the co-signatories of yesterday’s parliamentary question. «PASOK promised things that clearly could not be done and the price for such mistakes is a loss of trust.» Deputy Defense Minister Panos Beglitis admitted that PASOK was having trouble getting to grips with its task. «It is very hard for a party that governed the country during easy times to immediately adapt to a different period of political life,» he said.
