Confrontation between Marinakis and Doukas about the Unknown Soldier: “He is not behaving like a mayor” – “The fight continues”

The government representative Pavlos Marinakis and the mayor of Athens Haris Doukas were in a public confrontation over the Monument to the Unknown Soldier.

The occasion was statements by Mr. Marinakis in a televised interview with Mega, in which he criticized the mayor’s attitude towards the amendment which stipulates that the Ministry of National Defense undertakes the maintenance and promotion of the Monument, including cleaning through a contract with a private company and not by the Municipality of Athens. Mr. Doukas responded a few hours later with a post on social networks, choosing to frame his message with a photo next to relatives of victims of the train accident in Tempi.

During his interview, the government representative, when asked why the responsibility for cleaning should not be the responsibility of the Municipality of Athens, argued that “the municipality, through the mayor himself, has shown that he does not look at the obligations he has” and added: “He is not personal with people. He behaves like a politician who wants to place himself in the central political system and makes political statements which I consider to be unrelated to his duties. He wants to caress the ears of a leftist audience. Yes, it should be a self-evident obligation of the mayor of Athens to respect the holiest of the many important monuments we have in Athens. But Mr. Doukas, in the matter of the monument to the Unknown Soldier, did not act like a mayor, who should be cleaning his city.”

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In his Facebook post, Mr. Doukas responded with a photo together with relatives of victims of Tempe and the message: “My response to government representative Pavlos Marinakis about the monument to the Unknown Soldier: The fight for justice continues. Until the truth shines, until every soul finds justification. Until justice is served. Until the end”. With this choice, the mayor of Athens connects the current debate on the management of the Monument with the broader demand for justice for the Tempe accident, without entering into technical details of the amendment or further confrontation on the role of the Municipality in the cleanup.