Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras ousted Panagoulis from Syriza’s parliamentary group and Independent Greeks leader Panos Kammenos took the same action against Nikolopoulos.
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The lawmaker, Nikos Nikolopoulos, refused to resign his seat and is expected to be expelled from the right-wing populist Independent Greeks party.
The bill passed with the support of 153 MPs, while 137 MPs voted against it with 290 legislators participating in the roll call vote.
The deal that was agreed Tuesday will give Greece an extra 12 billion euro (US$12.7 billion) with 10 billion set aside to bailout it’s financially crippled banks.
With the government left with a perilously slim majority in the assembly and reactions to painful measures escalating inside the assembly and outside in the streets, political analysts commented that the next critical votes on a new pension system reform and other policies in coming weeks could be decisive for the coalition’s fate and the bailout’s implementation. This way, home foreclosure protection for primary homes covers about 60 percent of mortgages among an estimated 400,000 homeowners.
The European Union has made it clear that Greek debts will not receive a “haircut” and must be repaid in full, however, it has strongly suggested that a debt restructuring (i.e. extending the repayment period and, possibly, reducing interest payments) could be considered if acceptable progress is made towards the reforms and cuts that the lenders insisted on as conditions of the bailout loans.
Dozens of people protested in central Athens on Thursday. “The government had said they would not confiscate a single home but today they crushed all our rights”, Giorgos Tzifonios, a retired steelmaker who was demonstrating outside the Bank of Greece, told Reuters.
His resignation will not reduce the government’s 155-seat parliamentary majority since he is expected to be replaced by State Reform Minister Christoforos Vernardakis, who is not a member of parliament. Athens has said it wants to complete the first bail-out review swiftly, to start negotiations on debt relief.
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Even before the vote, Tsipras was dealt another blow when former government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis surrendered his seat in parliament in protest of the austerity measures. In September’s general election, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras promised no homes would be seized.
