ATHENS: A lawmaker from one of the small Greek parties whose support the government needs to avert a snap election said yesterday he had been offered a bribe to cast his ballot for the ruling coalition’s presidential candidate.
The accusation by Pavlos Haikalis, an actor and member of the small Independent Greeks party, came two days after Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ government failed to win enough parliamentary support for its candidate.
Two more votes are expected, on December 23 and December 29. If the candidate, Stavros Dimas, still lacks the necessary votes in the final round, Greece must hold a parliamentary election which opinion polls say the radical leftist Syriza party would win.
Haikalis, 55, a star of popular television comedies, told MEGA TV he had been offered a package worth 2-3 million euros, including €700,000 ($859,880) in cash, a promise to pay off his mortgage and advertising contracts, to back Dimas.
He said the offer had not been made by anyone in the government but by an individual “in the financial sector”. “There was a preliminary discussion, which started as a joke and then became very serious,” he said.
Government spokeswoman Sofia Voultepsi dismissed Haikalis’ comments as a “despicable show” and urged him to make public the evidence he said had been passed on to prosecutors.
“It is obvious why this is being staged—so that a new president is not elected and the country is led to early elections,” Voultepsi said in a statement.REUTERS
