The Greek parliament voted yesterday not to send a former minister to a special court over a bribery scandal, fending off the prospect of imminent snap elections.
Ruling New Democracy deputies took the party line and supported their fellow MP, but a number of blank votes showed cracks in the government's solidarity, complicating its efforts to cope with a slowing economy and social unrest.
House speaker Dimitris Sioufas said 144 deputies in the 300-seat house voted in favour of the minister, while 146 voted against him and 8 cast blank ballots. It would have required 151 votes to send him to a special court.
"After this result, the proposal to prosecute Aristotle Pavlides is rejected," Sioufas said.
He denied any wrongdoing and has resisted pressure to resign his seat.
Defections in his one-seat parliamentary majority could have forced Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis to call an election more than two years early to coincide with a June 7th European Parliament ballot.
Parliament had voted late on Monday on whether Mr Pavlides, a ruling New Democracy party MP and former Aegean minister, must stand trial on bribery charges.
"I am prepared for everything but I ask only for justice," Mr Pavlides told parliament before the vote.
The case was brought to light by a shipowner who testified that a Pavlides aide demanded bribes to grant a contract to run subsidised Aegean island ferry routes.
A committee of Greek MPs failed to reach agreement on the case last week, leaving the decision to the full house. All opposition parties asked deputies to vote against Pavlides, while New Democracy supported its deputy but allowed its MPs to cast a blank ballot, fearing outright dissent.
Discontent with Greece's slowing economy and high youth unemployment fuelled the country's worst riots in decades in December, after police shot dead a teenager in Athens.
Reuters
