Although the 20th of September appears to be the likeliest date for the snap election announced by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Thursday evening, there is uncertainty as to when they will actually take place, as the opposition parties do appear determined to not facilitate Mr. Tsipras with a quick election campaign period by waiving their right to exploratory mandates.
Following PM Tsipras’ statement, the provisional leader of main opposition party New Democracy Evangelos Meimarakis gave a press conference where he announced his intention to take advantage of the mandate to form a new government and that will initiate talks with the other parties.
Should Panagiotis Lafazanis form a Parliamentary Group with the Left Platform, which has 25 MPs, it is likely that he will be next in line for a mandate. If that is the case and Mr. Lafazanis is also unable to form a government, the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn will then be given the mandate. The River will also request a mandate, since the Constitution allows for a fourth exploratory mandate when parties have the same number of MPs. That is the maximum number of exploratory mandates that may be given.
The head of the River Stavros Theodorakis commented that the Prime Minister’s decision to call a snap election was “tragic” and argued that they would have a huge cost on Greek society. He added that “the Greek people have understood that will lies and old time partisan behaviors that country will not move forward”.
PASOK president Fofi Gennimata accused Mr. Tsipras of trying to avoid his responsibilities and that he called the elections to serve his “shortsighted partisan goals”. She has also insisted that the Constitutional procedures must be observed, without omitting the provisions for discussions amongst the parties. Should the talks be fruitless, Mrs. Gennimata appears prepared to ask President Pavlopoulos to call a council meeting of political leaders.
Finally, the general secretary of the Communist Party Dimitris Koutsoumpas stated that “there is no point” in the exploratory mandate process and announce that he would not participate in any attempts to establish an “antipopular government”, arguing that the choices of the recent coalition governments constantly lead the people to bankruptcy.
Tsipras to call SYRIZA central committee meeting
The outgoing Prime Minister and SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras has called a meeting with his party’s political secretariat, in order to decide when to all a Central Committee meeting. As expected, the members of the Left Platform are not expected to participate in the meeting.
