Leoutsakos: “The government should not have signed the agreement”

The SYRIZA-led government suffered a significant blow at the Friday morning’s critical vote in parliament, where the new bailout agreement was approved, as about 40 MPs voted against the deal.This development has fueled rumors that the Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras may call early elections after the 20^th of August, as he will be unable to effectively govern by relying on the opposition parties in Parliament.

On Monday morning one of the ‘rebel’ MPs, Stathis Leoutsakos, argued on SKAI that his party made “a huge turn” in Parliament, underlining many times that “SYRIZA and the bailout are incompatible”. Mr. Leoutsakos explained that “the bailout cannot be unifying basis for SYRIZA”.

Mr. Leoutsakos, who is one of the more vocal members of SYRIZA’s Left Platform faction, lamented that the government should not have signed the agreement and will soon have to distance itself from it, adding that “SYRIZA came to power to abolish the bailouts, not vote for them”.

Similarly, his Left Platform colleague Thanasis Petrakos appeared on Mega Channel and commented that “we do not intend to overthrow the government, but rather get it off the bailout course”.