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Samaras Moves To Thwart SYRIZA

Greek PM Antonis Samaras wants to keep his coalition in power
Greek PM Antonis Samaras wants to keep his coalition in power

Moving to head off the major Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) before it can block selection of Greece’s next President in a bid to force new elections, Prime Minister and New Democracy Conservative party head Antonis Samaras reportedly is mulling another change to his Cabinet and calling new polls on his own terms.
SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras, who is opposed to the harsh austerity terms Samaras and his partner, the PASOK Socialists, have imposed on orders of international lenders, said he will block any candidate – even one preferred by the Left – to replace Karolos Papoulias, whose second five-year term expires in February 2015.
While the President has virtually no power, Greece cannot have a government without one and if Tsipras, whose party has 71 of the 300 votes in Parliament, convinces others to go along with him that could block the 200 votes needed on the first two ballots and 180 on the final one to select a President. New Democracy and PASOK have only 153 votes together.
The newspaper Kathimerni said it was told by unnamed sources that Samaras wants to act before SYRIZA does and is considering whether to dump some ministers who are underperforming although it would be the second time in a year he has changed his Cabinet.
The Premier also is reportedly considering calling elections to pre-empt a SYRIZA move although he has repeatedly said he wanted to finish his four-year term out to 2016. In the background is the long-running drama of dealing with international lenders who are squeezing the government for more reforms and a lingering economic crisis that has given ammunition to SYRIZA.
Samaras is receiving two ideas about a reshuffle, it was reported, one that changes to his cabinet should happen around April, before the European Parliament and local elections in May. Greece holds the symbolic European Union Presidency until June 30 and Tsipras has predicted the government will be repudiated in the elections and his party will come to power.
Some of Samaras’s advisers reportedly believe that the reshuffle would be useful to leave until after the May elections in case the government achieves a disappointing result.
SYRIZA said that Samaras would not avoid a “crushing defeat” at the ballot box in May and accused New Democracy of thinking of forcing out Papoulias early so general elections could be called before then.
After SYRIZA first said it would attempt to trigger a national vote in February, Samaras said he did not want elections before 2016, when the government’s four-year term will expire.
“We do not have a problem with elections happening in 2015 but Greece needs them to take place in 2016,” he said. “That is when the Greek people want them.”
Another scenario would see Samaras calling snap polls in October, after two bailouts of $325 billion from the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) run out and after Greece has a chance for debt relief, although Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras said he prefers a debt restructuring.
That would also be after what’s expected to be a second consecutive record tourist summer and better economic indicators that would put the government in a better light and take some of the wind out of SYRIZA’s sails and anti-bailout argument. The rescue packages have come with big pay cuts, tax hikes and slashed pensions that have created record unemployment and deep poverty.
In such an event, Samaras could ask Papoulias to step down early and make the presidential succession part of the election campaign, thereby avoiding the issue from re-emerging a few months later.
Samaras has said that this year will bring an economic recovery and even a return to the markets but has warned himself that political unrest could unravel all that.

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