ANEL leader announces ejection of party MP, lashes out at Tsipras

Panos Kammenos, the leader of the nationalist Independent Greeks (ANEL), said on Friday evening he will eject MP Thanassis Papachristopoulos from the party after his speech in parliament, which is debating the ratification of “North Macedonia's” NATO accession protocol.

Papachristopoulos’s departure will take ANEL's parliamentary group below the minimum of five MPs, as one of the party's remaining lawmakers, Aristeidis Fokas, initially entered Parliament on the Union of Centrists’ ticket.

Kammenos blamed Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, his former government coalition partner, for ANEL's parliamentary dissolution, calling him a “cold assassin.”

“Prime Minister, you have committed a crime. I take responsibility for myself, but when it comes to ANEL, it is a crime I will never forget. You have decided to silence us,” he said, turning to the prime minister.

He also said he “may choose” to give up his own seat in parliament this evening to show that “there are people who don't care about a seat.”