Greece heading to early elections after presidential vote fails
Date December 30, 2014 - 3:06AM
Snap election called: Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. Photo: Bloomberg
Athens: Greece's parliament failed to elect a new president in the final round of a three-stage vote, paving the way for early general elections that could open the door to a leftist party that opposes the terms of the country's international bailouts.
The governing coalition's candidate, Stavros Dimas, a former European commissioner, garnered 168 votes in the 300-seat house, 12 short of the 180 votes required, with 132 voting against.
Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said he would visit President Karolos Papoulias on Tuesday and ask him to dissolve parliament immediately so that early elections could be held on January 25.
"The future has already begun": Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras.
"The future has already begun": Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras. Photo: Bloomberg
"The country has no time to lose," Mr Samaras said. "We did what we could to elect a president and avert early elections and the dangers they entail," he said. "Now, what parliament failed to do, the people must do."
Speaking after the vote, Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the opposition Syriza party that is ahead in opinion polls, was jubilant and called it "a historic day for Greek democracy".
"Greek MPs showed that democracy cannot be blackmailed, however much pressure is exerted," he said. "Today the government of Mr Samaras, which has looted society for the past 2½ years, belongs to the past."
The president's position is largely ceremonial in Greece, but the impasse reflected the deep divisions over the tough economic stewardship imposed by the European Union and international lenders since Greece's financial nose-dive more than five years ago.
The new political upheaval has not caused panic like that felt across the eurozone in 2012, when it seemed possible that the country could be forced to abandon the euro.
However the prospect of elections has unsettled international markets and Greece's creditors, because the leftist party Syriza, which has pledged to renegotiate the country's international bailouts and to seek a write-down of Greece's huge debt, is expected to win.
Opinion polls show the leftists firmly ahead of Mr Samaras' conservative New Democracy party, although Syriza's lead has narrowed in recent weeks as the prospect of protracted political and financial uncertainty has grown.
In an interview with state television over the weekend, Mr Samaras pushed opposition legislators to align with the government in Monday's vote, saying that failing to elect a president would be "political blackmail" and would result in "pointless upheaval" for the country.
Despite furious lobbying by the government, Mr Dimas received only 168 votes, the same number as in the second ballot last week and eight more than in the first vote on December 17.
Mr Samaras accused Syriza of "foolish bravado", adding that the leftists' economic program was "full of unilateral moves" that would upset Greece's creditors and jeopardise the country's fragile return to growth.
Mr Samaras' coalition government is working with the so-called troika of lenders, which has granted Greece two bailouts worth €240 billion euros (about $415 billion) since 2010 to keep the country liquid. In return, the troika has demanded an array of austerity measures that has slashed household incomes by a third and pushed unemployment above 25 per cent.
Negotiations with the members of the troika - the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund - on a tough economic program have been dragging amid rising opposition in Greece to austerity. But eurozone officials have expressed their readiness to extend Greece a precautionary credit line next year.
The possibility of Syriza coming to power is threatening to upend the economic negotiations. Wolfgang Schaeuble, the German finance minister and a champion of austerity in Greece and other countries, said in an interview with the German daily Bild on Saturday that any Greek government would have to honour existing agreements.
"New elections won't change anything about Greece's debt," he said, referring to a debt burden equal to 174 per cent of gross domestic product, the highest rate in the eurozone.
In a bid to reassure international partners, Mr Tsipras has sounded a more moderate tone recently, promising to keep Greece in the euro and negotiate an end to the bailout agreement rather than scrap it unilaterally. But he has stuck to his promise to reverse many of the tough austerity measures imposed during the crisis, reversing cuts to the minimum wage, freezing state layoffs and halting the sale of state assets.
New York Times, Reuters
