Greece crisis: Syriza rebels form new ‘Popular Unity’ party

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LafazanisRebels from Greece’s governing left-wing Syriza are to break away and form a new party.

Prime minister and Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras stood down on Thursday, paving the way for new elections.

The move came after he lost the support of many of his own MPs in a vote on the country’s new bailout with European creditors earlier this month.

Greek media reports say 25 rebel Syriza MPs will join the new party, called Leiki Anotita (Popular Unity).

The party will be led by former energy minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, who was strongly opposed to the bailout deal, reports say.

A list of MPs joining the party published by the Ta Nea newspaper showed that the parliamentary speaker Zoe Konstantopulou and former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis were not among its members.

Both had opposed a new bailout deal, with Ms Konstantopulou highly critical of her former ally Mr Tsipras.

‘Eurozone dictatorship’

Syriza won 149 seats in Greece’s 300-seat parliament in the last election in January.

The conservative New Democracy party came second, with 76 seats.

The new Popular Unity party becomes the third largest in parliament.

In exchange for a new €86bn ($95bn; £61bn) from European partners, Mr Tsipras had to agree to painful state sector cuts, including far-reaching pension reforms – and keeping Greece in the eurozone.

Close to a third of Syriza’s MPs abstained or voted against the terms of the new deal last week.

At the time, Mr Lafazanis said he was determined to “smash the eurozone dictatorship”.

On Friday morning, the head of conservative New Democracy party, Vangelis Meimarakis, met with Greece’s president and he will now be given three days to form a government.

Observers say he does not have enough support and elections will be called.

Reports suggest the election – the fifth in six years – will be called for 20 September.

If Mr Meimarakis fails to form a government, the chance will be given to the new party, analysts say, and then the far-right Golden Dawn party.

They, too, are unlikely to be able to gain enough allies to establish a government.

All parties can waive the right to negotiate and allow the president to approve a snap election.

Mr Meimarakis, however, has said he will try and use his mandate to form a government in the next few days.

Graphic showing seats by party in election results
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One response to “Greece crisis: Syriza rebels form new ‘Popular Unity’ party”

  1. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    Wow … River People in Greece? ;-)) … Anyway … Like Lebanon, it’s a country which should never have been in a ‘Eurozone’ monetarily. To change the thinking of all the people away from the ‘exchanges by friends, payola, direct trading, etc, all designed to avoid paying bills and taxes (which are bills) as a ‘country’, but with the generally untrusted government people willing to accept ‘loans’ all the time while being shorted on the taxes (or things like electric bills) to repay the loans, has put them in these ‘world market’ difficulties. At least Lebanese banks are tough to deal with … but that’s because they have trouble collecting payments for loans from dead people. In Greece, it has been the government that borrowed. Almost everyone else hides their money away. Call it Tradition, or Culture. It doesn’t make for viable ‘loans’ from countries where everyone accepts, that if they want certain things for all the society, they must pay for it. And then keep the eyes on the politicians – and make sure the money is being spent on what they wanted it paying for. (The garbage of Lebanon is an example … No-one seems to actually know what the ‘contract’ reads like – or who is getting the money. ( i.e. – how it is verifiably disbursed))
    Largely, it is ancient systems in place due to the historically poor governing methods experienced by ‘the people’, which may have worked ok for them and for the country within itself … but related to a ‘Market Economy’ in the World’s ‘New Orders’ of business , can’t fill the bills.
    One can say that ‘Euro-People’ should have known better than to offer loans, and some want to blame them for that … charity is better to simply be known as ‘hand-outs’ with no expectation of ‘returns’, except in the sense of eventual long-long-term changes in the minds of ‘the people’, which might finally bring ‘the general thinking’ up to snuff – if they can find politicians to LEAD them to that needed trust – with the accounting books open.

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