Greek government on shaky ground

Ruling party ‘can’t last for long’ as opposition party pulls support over closure of state broadcaster

ATHENS — The smallest party in Greece’s ruling coalition pulled out of the government on Friday after a row over the abrupt closure of the state broadcaster, leaving Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras with a tiny majority in parliament.

After talks on resuming broadcasts on the ERT radio and television station collapsed late on Thursday, Democratic Left lawmakers voted to withdraw their ministers from Samaras’s cabinet.

They have yet to decide whether to offer external support in parliament to keep Greece’s international bailout on track.

The leftist party’s departure was a blow to the conservative Samaras, who is left with a three-seat majority in parliament, making it tougher to pass unpopular reforms demanded by foreign lenders and emboldening the hard-left opposition.

In a defiant address to Greeks after midnight, Samaras said he was ready to press ahead without the leftists if necessary.

“I want us to continue together as we started, but I will move on either way,” Samaras said in a televised statement.

His spokesman, Simos Kedikoglou, said Samaras had sufficient majority “to lead the country out of the crisis.”

The row coincided with a new hitch in Greece’s EU-IMF bailout with the discovery of a potential funding shortfall due to the reluctance of some euro zone central banks to roll over their holdings of Greek government bonds.

Ten-year Greek government bond yields rose to their highest since late April, while Greek stocks tumbled 6%.

Samaras’s conservative New Democracy party and its Socialist PASOK ally command 153 deputies in the 300-seat parliament, so they can muddle through for a while without the Democratic Left’s 14 lawmakers, but the outlook is more unstable.

“The government can’t last for long in its new shape. The horse-trading will begin, there will be more crises, they won’t be able to push reforms,” said John Loulis, a political analyst.