Athens, 27 January 2023 (dpa/MIA) – Greece‘s conservative government led by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis survived a vote of no confidence on Friday, with 156 members in the 300-seat Greek parliament voting in support of Mitsotakis, according to the parliament.

The vote of no confidence was requested by Alexis Tsipras, leader of the left-wing SYRIZA party, in response to a wire-tapping scandal that has been rumbling on for months.

The Greek secret service EYP tapped the telephones and mobiles of opposition politicians, ministers, high-ranking military officers and a number of journalists between 2020 and 2022. This was confirmed by the Greece‘s data protection authority ADAE at the beginning of the week at the request of Tsipras.

Mitsotakis insists that he knew nothing about it. “The judiciary will clarify the case,” he said. He accused Tsipras of engaging in  political mudslinging ahead of upcoming parliamentary elections.

“You have been lying for six months,” Tsipras said of Mitsotakis. He recalled that in the wake of the revelations, the secretary general of the government office, Mitsotakis’ nephew Grigoris Dimitriadis – who was in charge of intelligence – was forced to resign. He called Mitsotakis  a “coward”, who was “hiding behind his nephew.”

Analysts see the vote of no confidence as a kind of prelude to the parliamentary elections in Greece, which must take place by mid-July at the latest.

It is thought that Mitsotakis plans to bring them forward to April. All polls give his party a lead of around seven percentage points over SYRIZA.