The opposition in the Greek parliament has tabled a vote of no confidence in Greece's government over allegations that it tried to manipulate the ongoing investigation into the country's worst rail tragedy.
The proposal, submitted by the socialist PASOK party and supported by other opposition parties, is unlikely to succeed as the government has a majority in parliament.
PASOK chairman Nikos Androulakis said the proposal was supported by three other left-wing parties and said Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis "has no choice, he will come here to justify his actions".
The confidence vote will take place in the late hours of March 28 after three days of debate.
The disaster, which killed 57 people in February 2023, occurred when a freight and passenger train carrying 350 employees and passengers, mostly students, collided shortly before midnight near a tunnel outside the central city of Larissa.
A year after the tragedy, relatives of the victims say that despite the government's promises of a full investigation, the authorities wasted time and missed vital evidence.
Experts appointed by the relatives' families said the crash site had been cleared of debris and topsoil before investigators could fully examine it.
The body of a young woman traveling on the train is still missing and there are claims that the freight train was carrying undeclared chemicals.
A Metron Analysis poll last week showed that nearly 9 out of 10 Greeks thought little progress had been made in the investigation.
A few days ago, anger grew even more after the To Vima weekly reported that leaked recordings of train staff on the night of the accident, released by the media at the time, had been edited to suggest that the cause of the incident was just human error.
Opposition parties subsequently accused the government of "distributing" the redacted tape to pro-government media outlets to support this claim.
Critics pointed to Mitsotakis' address to the nation just hours after the incident, in which he said: "Everything points to human error."
The government reacted furiously to the allegations, calling opposition parties "thugs" out to "destabilize" the country.
Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis called To Vima's report "baseless" and a "stain" on the paper's history.
The main opposition Syriza party has called on Mitsotakis, who was easily re-elected in June, to resign.
Opposition parties were already furious last week after a four-month parliamentary inquiry into the incident ended without finding senior politicians guilty.
More than 30 railway employees and officials have been charged in connection with the February 28, 2023 crash, with a trial expected to begin in June.
For decades, Greece's 2,552 km railway network has suffered from mismanagement, poor maintenance and outdated equipment.
Last year, the government fended off another no-confidence vote over a wiretapping scandal involving state intelligence and the prime minister's office. /BGNES, AFP
