Former Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos has placed the blame for the EYP National Intelligence Service surveillance of PASOK-KINAL leader Nikos Androulakis squarely on the government, and in a thinly veiled manner on Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

“The political responsibility of those who wield power that has been given to them based on the decision of the people [through a general election] is by nature and by definition objective,” Pavlopoulos declared during a “heroic martyrs” ceremony marking the anniversary of the slaughter of 317 civilians killed in the village of Kommeno, Arta prefecture, during a Nazi massacre on this day in 1943. Among the dead were 97 infants and children up to age 17, and 119 women.

“Experiencing today in our country the dangers that lurk due to the violation of certain ones of the aforementioned rights, and the par excellence violation of the provisions of Article 19 of the Constitution regarding the confidentiality of communications, at the expense of citizens, but also at the expense of institutional figures in politics and the life of our state, I feel obliged to underline the following:

The ex-president’s full statement

“The political responsibility of those who wield power that has been given to them based on the decision of the people [through a general election] is by nature and by definition objective. Hence, those who have that power assume in its entirety their share of the political responsibility, and it is inconceivable to shift it to others in any manner,” Pavlopoulos, apparently alluding to the prime minister, was quoted as saying by epiruspost.gr.

“In simple words, political leaders, in order to justify their democratic legitimisation, cannot be content with merely the [day-to-day] administration of power in carrying out their duties. They are obliged to prove themselves, with courage and a sense of consequence, as uncompromising defenders of representative democracy and its institutions, and not just to calculate the so-called “political cost”.

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