Greek elections seen for next month as opposition unlikely to form government
Greece’s president asked the main opposition party on Friday to try to form a new government, a day after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras resigned and called for an early election next month to deal with a governing party rebellion over Greece’s third bailout deal.
The opposition has few chances of uniting and forming a government, meaning that after more than five years of a worsening financial crisis, Greece is headed for its fifth national election in six years.
Tsipras is widely tipped to win the vote, though if he fails to secure an outright majority he could have to seek a new coalition that could hamper his ability to govern.
Hardline lawmakers in Tsipras’ radical-left Syriza party announced Friday they were splitting from the party and forming their own anti-austerity movement, which becomes the third largest group in parliament.
Outgoing government officials say the likeliest election date is Sept. 20, just eight months after Tsipras was elected on promises to fight creditors’ demands for spending cuts and tax hikes — terms he later agreed to in order to secure Greece a third bailout and keep it from falling out of the euro.
It will be the third time this year that Greeks vote, after January elections and a July 5 referendum Tsipras called urging voters to reject reforms that creditors were proposing during the bailout negotiations.
On Friday, President Prokopis Pavlopoulos met conservative New Democracy party head Evangelos Meimarakis and asked him to try to form a government. Meimarakis has three days to seek coalition partners, after which the mandate would be given to the third-largest party in parliament for a further three days.
The third-largest party is now the new movement formed by the 25 lawmakers who split from Syriza on Friday. The group, named Popular Unity, will be led by former energy minister Panagiotis Lafazanis.
Meimarakis also met with the Speaker of parliament to seek her contribution in trying to cobble together a government and avoid early elections.
However, it is unlikely Meimarakis or the new party will be able to form a government. At that point, parliament will be dissolved and a caretaker government appointed to lead the country to early elections within a month.
Malcolm Barr of J.P. Morgan noted that if Tsipras and his Syriza party return to office, as expected, they would do so without the hardliners and would seek out a moderate coalition partner that would help implement the bailout program.
However, he said, “the downside of new elections is that they will slow the implementation of measures.”