Main opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis said he will table a no confidence motion next week against Alternate Health Minister Pavlos Polakis, who denounced a New Democracy European Parliament candidate because the latter, who is paraplegic, had been hired as a National Health service doctor under a procedure in which the applicant’s disability is taken into account in the hiring point system.
PM Alexis Tsipras said he will turn the no confidence motion into a confidence vote for the government.
“If you were advocating EQUAL opportunities Mr. Kimbouropoulos, you should have submitted papers [a regular application] to be hired as a second level attending physician by the National Health System (ESY) after evaluation by the Council like other doctors and not like that, as you were entitled to do under the terms of a law on disabled persons. SHAME and PITY for you to say what you say,” Polakis tweeted.
He was responding to a tweet by Kimbouropoulos who said the disabled are not interested in gifts and charity but rather equal opportunity.
Mitsotakis described Polakis as “deplorable” because the minister “in a vulgar manner” attacked Kimbouropoulos because he availed himself of a law that is designed to help disabled people. “He dropped an unacceptable innuendo about a person who in his life has been an example to be emulated,” he said.
One day after former education minister Nikos Filis publicly said Polakis should recant, the minister today said he supports the affirmative action measure but he expressed no regrets and instead said he was criticising Kimbouropoulos because the latter was supposedly critical of special provisions for the disabled.
Mitsotakis lambastes SYRIZA
“This is your understanding of a society with equal opportunity. Shame on you for silently supporting him [Polakis]. Enough is enough!” Mitsotakis said, addressing the government. “Stelios did not get any special treatment and he does not need us. We as a society need Stelios Kimbouropoulos who sets and example.”
