In a announcement – a mockery of Nikos Androulakis one of the most historic members of PASOK, Charis Kastanidis announced resignation from the opposition party.
A detailed statement by Haris Kastanidis
In my political career, I committed myself only in the name of ideas and principles for which I fought without compromise. Often, at human and political cost.
I have learned from the surprise of circumstances, but I am unable to get used to the surprise of persons.
In the 2023 elections, Mr. Androulakis got the seat of Thessaloniki, excluding the parliamentary representation of its citizens from the person they elected first. Subsequently, his colleagues, appointed in the Organizational Sector,had taken to threatening organizations that dared to invite me as a speaker. And to leave no doubt about his intentions, at the recent congress, he invented amendments to the PASOK constitution to exclude a single person from the Movement’s ballot papers. The maximum term limit that he instituted for MPs in the party’s constitution, with retroactive effect, does not concern anyone else, as some people falsely spread, but only me.
At the Delphi forum he stated that he recommended the term limit because MPs with long terms of office are guilty of clientelism and bribery. He forgot, of course, to say that he exempted from the regulation the former presidents of PASOK, who can continue to be MPs even though they have completed 20 years in office. It seems that past presidents, like himself when he is a “past president” in the future, are sanctified by their title and remain “untainted” by buffoonery and clientelism.
Mr. Androulakis’ claim is offensive, insensitive and insincere.
Inconsiderate, because Mr. Androulakis wants to hastily skip over the painful truth that most of the political persons under investigation for current scandalous cases have short parliamentary terms, and in the OPEKEPE case, by diabolical coincidence, people closely associated with him are being investigated, one of them is also in prison.
Inspirational and insulting for personalities in our modern political history, with a long presence in politics and in Parliament, personalities who shone with their moral example, honored democracy, served the civil society and not the clients.
The Kostis Stephanopoulos, Anastasios Peponis, Ioannis Aleyras or Yannis Charalampopoulos would have undergone the ordeal of being put under the judgment of the sly Androulakis, if he had been their co-conspirator.
As far as I am concerned, it is enough for me that citizens recognize in me the man who drafted the founding law for the Citizen’s Advocate, who established the Independent Authority for the Fight against Money Laundering, who did not hesitate to resign as a minister, defending transparency in public procurement and public works when the government backed out of its commitments. It is enough for me that citizens know that key provisions of anti-corruption and anti-graft laws bear my signature as Minister of Justice.
Honesty, decency,
dedication to the public interest and not to electoral patronage is about the conscience, character and ethics of individuals, not about the length of terms of office.
I’m in awe. When decency is repeated, decency must respond.
Mr. Androulakis has shown in all possible ways that he does not want my political presence in the PASOK of which he is the leader. He wishes to have a free field for his decisions and, above all, for his post-election political choices. I am, therefore, submitting my resignation.
I am not resigning from the PASOK of the ideas of democratic socialism. I am resigning from the party of Mr. Androulakis.
I bid him farewell in the wording of Chateaubriand: “The more insignificant are those who hold power, the more they flow towards pettiness.”
I hold in my heart the common struggles we have fought with many friends and comrades, struggles that will continue.
