Government, SYRIZA spat over main opposition MP’s insulting remark

The government and the main opposition bickered on Tuesday over a prominent SYRIZA lawmaker who made rude remarks about a New Democracy official at a television panel discussing access of the uninsured to the national healthcare system the day before. 

Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis called on SYRIZA leader Stefanos Kasselakis to expel Pavlos Polakis after he told New Democracy’s Secretary Maria Syrengela to “go get a job” and “shut up” when she interrupted him to ask a question over on Monday evening.

“Comments [like these] remind us of extremist parties, and because SYRIZA is very sensitive when it comes to the expulsions and resignations of ministers, we ask Mr Kasselakis to comment on this incident and in any case expel Mr. Polakis,” Marinakis told Mega on Tuesday. “If Mr Kasselakis does not do anything, it means that this behavior, which all these years has been left unchecked by SYRIZA, is an overall behavior of SYRIZA.”

“Insults, misogyny and toxic attacks have no place not only in Parliament or in the political arena, but above all in society,” Syrengela said on Tuesday, adding that she doubted Kasselakis would condemn the MPs behaviour or expel him. 

Kasselakis called Syrengela on Tuesday and apologized “for everything that happened in yesterday’s TV panel,” sources from SYRIZA said. 

On his side, Polakis dismissed the accusations, saying he “will not take a single word back” from his Monday comments. “She did not know the issue we were discussing…and kept talking over me while I was on the phone so that viewers wouldn’t hear the take-down of New Democracy’s policy towards the uninsured,” he said on his Facebook profile.