Foreign Affairs

bemildred

(90,061 posts) Wed Dec 17, 2014, 05:16 PM Dec 2014

Greek PM Samaras falls short in first round presidential vote

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek lawmakers failed to elect a new president in a first round of voting on Wednesday, leaving Prime Minister Antonis Samaras still looking for as many as 20 votes from independents and small parties to keep his coalition government in office.

With two more rounds still to come, a win for the government had not been expected on Wednesday but the result was at the lower end of expectations, just meeting the minimum threshold officials had seen as satisfactory before the vote.

Of the 300 members of parliament, 160 voted in favor of the government's candidate Stavros Dimas with 135 against and five absent, short of the 200-vote supermajority needed to elect a president in the first round.

Greek media had speculated the government could win between 161 and 167 votes but only five deputies crossed the

http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCAKBN0JV16A20141217

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Greek PM Samaras falls short in first round presidential vote (Original Post) bemildred Dec 2014 OP

Greek govt fails to win votes to elect president bemildred Dec 2014 #1

Greeks Used to Years of Chaos Dismiss Samaras’s Warnings of More bemildred Dec 2014 #2

bemildred

(90,061 posts)

1. Greek govt fails to win votes to elect president

Reply to bemildred (Original post)

Tue Dec 23, 2014, 07:43 AM

Dec 2014

Greece's parliament failed to elect a new president in the second-round vote of a three-stage poll, increasing the chances of an early general election in February that could bring the anti-bailout Syriza party to power.

Stavros Dimas, the governing coalition's candidate, won 168 votes, eight more than in last week's first round ballot, following a last-minute appeal for consensus by Antonis Samaras, the prime minister, Kerin Hope writes.

But the former European environment commissioner now appears unlikely to capture the 180 votes needed in the third and final ballot on December 29. Lawmakers from two small opposition parties that could make up the shortfall are expected to abstain. . Syriza has kept a steady lead in opinion polls over the governing centre-right New Democracy party since coming first in European parliamentary elections held in May. Its leader, Alexis Tsipras, vows that, if elected, he will demand a sizeable write-off of Greece's sovereign debt and revive the economy through increased public spending - putting Athens on a collision course with its international creditors.

http://www.ft.com/intl/fastft/255151/greek-govt-fails-win-votes-elect-president

bemildred

(90,061 posts)

2. Greeks Used to Years of Chaos Dismiss Samaras’s Warnings of More

Reply to bemildred (Original post)

Tue Dec 23, 2014, 07:03 PM

Dec 2014

As Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s political maneuvers to avoid early elections edge toward a dead end, his warning of turmoil risks falling on deaf ears among Greeks numbed by years of upheaval.

After losing a second vote in parliament yesterday on his candidate for a new president, Samaras needs to win over a dozen lawmakers before a final ballot on Dec. 29. Should he fail, the constitution dictates that elections must be called, with opposition party Syriza leading opinion polls.

“We’ve already been living through chaos for years now,” said Kostas Grekas, a 23-year-old computer-technology student in Athens who graduates next year. “I’d prefer there to be elections now so that Syriza gets in, just to break up the old party system and to see something different.”

Greece marked 2014 by exiting a six-year recession that cost the country about a quarter of its economic output and tripled the unemployment rate. While Samaras’s pitch is that a change of government would endanger the incipient recovery, Syriza promises to abandon austerity measures tied to the country’s international bailout.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-12-23/greeks-used-to-years-of-chaos-dismiss-samaras-s-warnings-of-more

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