Hours after senior New Democracy lawmaker Dora Bakoyannis called for the resignation of Deputy Agriculture Minister Makarios Lazaridis to “facilitate the prime minister and his party,” the main opposition PASOK on Saturday sharply criticized Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis for keeping him in the cabinet.
“The prime minister’s insistence on keeping Mr Lazaridis in the cabinet is inexplicable, especially as even lawmakers from New Democracy are taking clear distances from him,” PASOK said in a statement.
“How much longer will Mr Mitsotakis maintain his personal patronage?” the party added.
Lazaridis, who was appointed in a limited government reshuffle earlier this month, has faced criticism over a degree he submitted in 2007 to serve as an expert scientist in the office of the late education minister Marietta Giannakou.
He has refused to resign, saying that if he “should have been appointed as a special associate rather than a special adviser, this happened without any intervention or choice on my part.”
He has also offered to return any salaries he improperly received, with interest – a statement PASOK on Saturday described as an explicit admission of guilt.