The formation of the Laiki Enotita, or Popular Unity party, was announced by 25 Syriza members, hours after Tsipras stepped down as prime minister in a calculated action to consolidate power in a new election.
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However, hardliners in Tsipras’ radical left Syriza party said Friday they meant to split from the party and form their own separate group in Parliament.
Meimarkis is expected to meet with President Prokopis Pavlopoulos around midday to discuss the options after the president’s office sent him an email early Friday giving him the mandate to form a new government. “We do not want to govern against the popular will”, he said, adding that Tspiras and his government were “confident in rightness of our policies and the maturity of the Greek electorate”.
Each party can spend up to three days trying to do so, and New Democracy leader Evangelos Meimarakis said he will use his available time.
The German government has urged Greece on Friday to stick to reform commitments irrespective of the snap elections called by the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.
Announcing his resignation on Thursday night, Tsipras said that he felt a “moral obligation” to put Greece’s third global bailout deal and the further austerity measures it requires in front of the people.
About one in four Syriza lawmakers refused to back the bailout’s ratification in Parliament last week, which was only approved with backing from opposition parties.
“Mr Tsipras has barely received fresh money from euro partners for this heavily indebted country and he is already changing from singing reform tunes to hitting the breaks on reforms“.
An unprecedented war of words has broken out between Greece’s outgoing government, the parliament chief and the president over early elections likely to be held on September 20.
Syriza swept to power on a mandate of scrapping spending cuts and tax increases – but under Mr Tsipras, the party made a major U-turn by accepting strict austerity conditions in exchange for another bailout.
Alexis Tsipras has confirmed he is resigning as Greek Prime Minister – paving the way for a general election to take place within the next 30 days.
“I wish to be fully frank with you”.
“The certainty is that the need for elections has arisen”, Energy and Environment Minister Panos Skourletis said on state television.
The European Commission is “not concerned” that the decision to hold new elections in Greece could affect the country’s bailout or the implementation of reforms associated with it, according to spokeswoman Annika Breidthardt.
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Political analysts in Athens expressed doubts whether Meimarakis’ or Lafazanis’ attempts will end conclusively, seeing the early elections as rather inevitable.
