Movement for Change calls for snap elections

The leader of the centrist Movement for Change, Fofi Gennimata, wrote to Parliament Speaker Nikos Voutsis yesterday calling for snap elections before Greece signs an agreement for an exit from the country’s third international bailout program.

Gennimata also asked Voutsis that a debate be held in Parliament on the measures that Greece has committed to implement after it officially emerges from the third bailout in August.

“The country, the economy and our society cannot be led toward a tough future unprotected and unsafe,” she wrote in her letter.

“The government has no mandate from the people to undertake such serious commitments,” she added.

Even though Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos has said that Greece will come under “enhanced surveillance” in the post-bailout era, the government has insisted the country will have a “clean exit” from the rescue program.

Last week, New Democracy said the prospect of enhanced surveillance has punctured the narrative of a clean exit and urged the government to call elections after August.

But ND’s call for election after August was decried by Gennimata, who accused the conservatives of doing nothing to halt the government’s course.

“While it has been asking for elections over the last two years, now it awkwardly looks on as the government negotiates the country’s prospects... and is making an appointment [for elections] in the fall,” she said.

Movement for Change ally To Potami did not make an official comment about Gennimata’s call for elections, but party sources said it believes that the government must fulfill its four-year term in office.