Brussels, 27/08/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 26 August, the outgoing Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, swept away the possibility of forming a coalition with the traditional parties (New Democracy, Pasok, To Potami) after the elections, the date of which was expected to be formally announced on Thursday 27 August.
“I will not be prime minister of a coalition government” with New Democracy, Pasok or To Potami, Tsipras said in an interview with Alpha TV, quoted by Associated Press. “I feel that these three parties essentially express the old political system”, he added. As to the collapse of Syriza, he said that this was a “sad outcome”, but not “unexpected”.
Defections have continued among the ranks of Syriza, with 53 members of the central committee (out of 201) stepping down. Most of them are expected to go across to the Popular Unity party, formed by some 20 Syriza dissidents and led by the former energy minister, Panagiotis Lafazanis. Amongst other things, this “group of 53” criticises Tsipras for having called early elections without having first consulted the Syriza central committee.
An interim Prime Minister was to be announced on Thursday evening and the elections formally convened once the head of Popular Unity comes to the end of his time to try to form a government.
The former finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, has already announced that he will not be standing in the elections. In a discussion with representatives of academic circles, the transcription of which was published on Thursday, he said that Tsipras had made the “courageous no” of the Greek voters in the referendum into a “capitulation”.
On Alpha TV, Tsipras defended his decision to agree to a weighty agreement with the eurozone. Abandoning the single currency would, he said, have been a disaster. He also had some very harsh words for his former finance minister, whom he accused of having lost all credibility in the eyes of the institutions representing Athens' creditors (IMF, Commission, ECB).
Greece had to accept hefty measures in exchange for a third financial assistance programme of €86 billion (see EUROPE 11372). The European Stability Mechanism (ESM) will not be providing all of the money on its own. €16 billion were left over from the second bailout plan. The director general of the ESM, Klaus Regling, also repeated on Thursday that he expected the IMF to come on board with this third bailout plan. “Up to 16 billion is something I could imagine”, he said. At the Eurogroup meeting which approved the third bailout plan, the French minister, Michel Sapin, explained that the IMF had not sent out any signals as to the availability of this envelope of €16 billion. The IMF will make its decision in the autumn. (Elodie Lamer)