The Plenum of the Hellenic Solution, Kyriakos Velopoulos, has decided to lift the immunity of the President of the Hellenic Parliament.
194 deputies took part in the vote. 97 deputies voted in favour of the waiver of immunity, 79 deputies voted against and 18 deputies were present.
The Plenary was asked to decide on a request to waive the immunity of the President of Hellenic Solution, Kyriakos Velopoulos, after complaint filed against him by a politician of another party for insult, public and repeated slander. The competent special committee on parliamentary ethics had unanimously recommended the lifting of immunity.
In today’s proceedings in the plenary session, however, the parliamentary representative of the Hellenic Solution, Constantine Xitas, said that his party’s CO would vote against the request to lift immunity, while the parliamentary representative of the New Democracy, Dimitris Markopoulos, said that ND MPs will vote according to their conscience.
Mr. Hitas said the man who has sued the president of Hellenic Solution has repeatedly attacked his party, insulting in the worst way the entire Hellenic Solution Parliamentary Group, its cadres, its candidates and calling them “pedophiles”. As he claimed, although Hellenic Solution responded with a lawsuit and a lawsuit, this man not only continued his attacks but then sued the party’s president. “Today is a historic day for what message the Greek Parliament will send out and whether it will open the Aeolus box in case any citizen can subjugate in this vomitous way. Are we pedophiles? Am I a child molester? Are my colleagues? Our president? Are you serious? So no. Mr. President, dear Mr. Velopoulos, despite your constant attitude and position, today the Hellenic Solution’s CO will vote no to your request to lift the immunity of a guy who subjugates and defames hypocrisies, families and thousands of Greeks who may vote for us”, said the parliamentary representative of the Hellenic Solution and commented that this situation goes beyond political expediency – the plaintiff is a candidate of another party – it is a vulgarity. “We are separated by a lot”, Hitas pointed out, addressing the benches of the New Democracy: “I refer to you because you had said that the vulgarity and the practice used by some people sent Mr. Mylonakis to intensive care, because he could not stand it and burst. Remember with the child rapists etc. This is exactly the same thing happening here today. Our psyche can’t take this stuff.”.
“We would ask for a referral so that the Ethics Committee can re-examine this matter. Deadlines do not allow for that and it must be discussed today. We, the Hellenic Solution, will vote against it and we look you all in the eye and call on you to consider what will happen if they start calling you pedophiles as well,” the Hellenic Solution MP said, addressing the other parties, which he called on to vote according to their conscience.
“Our party has suffered from such vulgarities and I wish we had found supporters when we had condemned such expressions,” the parliamentary representative of New Democracy, Dimitris Markopoulos, noted: “It is clear that new evidence is being presented belatedly which was not available to the Ethics Committee when it declared its own judgment. As Hitas pointed out, this case cannot be referred back to the committee because of Article 62 and the time constraints are clear. For this reason, the New Democracy’s CO calls on the House, not taking into account the initial judgment of the Ethics Committee, to take into account the new evidence that has emerged and to vote according to its conscience.”
