Three weeks after the collision between two trains that caused the death of 57 people in Greece, Greek rail traffic resumed normality yesterday. He did so just a day after Prime Minister Kiriakos Mitsotakis confirmed that 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 It 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. Although the president had until July to call the elections, it is most likely that they will be held on Sunday, 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 complicated than he expected. The possibility of the Greeks voting on April 9 was raised, but it was ruled out due to its 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 leftist Syriza, half that before the incident, and when it was already in the eye of the hurricane due to a scandal involving wiretapping of politicians and journalists. Two years ago, he surpassed him by 20 points.
Greece has experienced these weeks massive demonstrations in 75 cities. In Athens, up to 60,000 people, according to some media, took to the streets to shout “murderers” at the government and demand responsibility for an accident whose victims were mainly university students returning home after a long weekend. Some banners read “Let me know when you arrive”, the last messages that parents sent to young people. What began as a student protest ended with dozens of occupied universities, a general strike called by the main unions, with the ferries connecting Athens and Thessaloniki moored in the ports or urban transport stopped. "Our dead, your benefits", said another of the slogans, denouncing the years of cuts in public services in the country.
At first, Mitsotakis attributed the accident to "human error" – the first defendant was the station manager, who admitted having made a mistake – but after the wave of indignation he had no choice but to back down and apologize for the " disastrous state” of the railway infrastructures, with serious security problems, and promise absolute transparency to clarify responsibilities. Now the conservative government accuses Syriza of having delayed improvements to the network under Alexis Tsipras, and a parliamentary commission is investigating why a contract signed in 2014 by the state railway company to install a series of automated security measures in the section where the accident occurred.
