THE Greek coalition government’s presidential candidate right-winger Stavros Dimas received the votes of just 160 parliamentary deputies last Wednesday night in the first round of the elections for the Head of the Greek Republic.
To be elected, Dimas needed 200 votes. This was a humiliating defeat for the government of conservatives and social democrats who command 155 deputies but had hoped to attract about 10-15 votes from the group of independent deputies as well as from some small parties.
In the last few days, an international campaign has unfolded in support of the Greek government’s presidential candidate.
Reports in leading bourgeois newspapers in the USA, Europe and Britain stated that financial disaster will occur in Greece if the Vouli (parliament) fails to elect Dimas.
The President of the European Commission, Jean Claude Juncker, and the European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Pierre Moscovici, who visited Athens for two days last Monday, also openly intervened in the Greek presidential elections in support of Dimas.
The leader of the opposition Coalition of the Radical Left party (SYRIZA), Alexis Tsipras, stated after the vote: ‘The fearmongering of the last few days has failed; the strategy of fear has collapsed. Tomorrow will be a new day because democracy cannot be blackmailed. The people and democracy will provide the way out.’
The Greek parliamentary junta of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras will try to continue its political conspiracies to muster the necessary votes in the next two presidential election ballots.
In the second round, 200 deputies’ votes are still required, but in the third ballot scheduled for 29 December just 180 are needed.
Samaras’ plot is to attract more independent deputies plus the deputies of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party – half of them imprisoned but still able to vote.
What is most likely is that Samaras will fail utterly and thus a general election will be called for the end of January.