Spilios Livanos: The prime minister accepted his resignation after controversial comment on 2007 Ilia fires

Spilios Livanos: The announcement of the prime minister’s office

According to the prime minister’s office, Kyriakos Mitsotakis called Livanios to demand an explanation about his reaction to the remarks of conservative Sparta Mayor Petros Doukas. The minister “admitted that he should have reacted differently and made his resignation available to the Prime Minister,” who accepted it.

Addressing Livanios at a meeting in Sparta on February 2 to discuss paying compensations to farmers who lost crops due to the recent frost, Doukas bragged that “this is how we won the elections in 2007.” “We went down [there] with bags and compensated all those who had…[been affected by the fires]” he is heard saying in the video of the meeting which was broadcast live on Facebook from the website Lakones and republished in local website ilialive.gr.

“These years were unforgettable,” someone from the meeting says, interrupting Doukas. “We literally turned the game around, we where we trailing 15% [in the polls], we would have been destroyed, we went there and with two moves we turned the whole game around,” the mayor of Sparta continues. “You made history then with what you did there… and we all fall short whatever we do after that epic time,” Livanos responds, with everyone laughing.