Athens, 23/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - With 9.8 million Greeks to visit the polling stations on Sunday 25 January to vote in a new government, Alexis Tsipras has launched an appeal to voters still undecided - around 10% of them - to give him a clear mandate.
At a press conference on Friday 23 January, Tsipras called on the Greeks to give him an “absolute majority” so that he can have a “free hand” to negotiate with the Eurozone, particularly on the reduction of the debt. Syriza has consolidated its lead over the party of the outgoing Prime Minister, New Democracy, of five percentage points. Some opinion polls predict that the gap will grow even wider.
However, it appears clear that Syriza, Tsipras' party, will not secure any more concessions over the debt than those already negotiated by the outgoing Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras. The measures to reduce the debt which the eurozone will accept are limited (see other article) and the most reluctant of the leaders are already convinced, as shown by the Finnish Prime Minister, Alexander Stubb, speaking from Davos. Finland, which will soon also be entering election campaigns, expressed its wish list on the extension time for the Greek programme to ensure that the Greek dossier does not trouble its election campaigns, having negotiated guarantees for the reimbursement of loans with Athens.
“The Finnish position is that we will deal with any democratically elected government that Greece has and that it will be very difficult for us to forgive any loans or restructure debt at this particular moment”, said Stubb, quoted by the Financial Times. However, the eurozone can look at various types of loan maturity extensions, Stubb added, again quoted by the FT.
On Friday, Alexis Tsipras pledged that Greece would recover its dignity and would no longer be “governed by emails sent by second-tier EU staff”. He also hinted that he would not respect any commitments signed off by the previous government.
On the same day, in an interview with EuroInsights, the European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Pierre Moscovici, said that a new government would have to be “cognisant of the state's commitments”.
All parties which gain 3% of the votes will be represented within the national parliament and the first party will be granted a bonus of an extra 50 seats. If no party has an absolute majority, the party which wins the most votes will have three days to try to form a government. (EL)