The new SYRIZA-ANEL coalition officially is officially Greece ‘s new government after the Greek Parliament gave it a confidence vote during the early mornings hours of Thursday.
Out of the Greek Parliament’s 300 representatives, 155 MPs voted in favor of the new government, thus giving the new administration a marginal majority victory. The SYRIZA and ANEL MPs were the only ones who gave the country’s government a confidence vote.
“We want this four-year period to go down in history as the time when the crisis ended,”Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said. “Our main concern will be to support the weakest.”
The prime minister said he expects the economy to start growing again by July 2016. “We will gradually restore the long-term stability of the Greek economy … (regain) investor confidence and, at the beginning of 2017, regain access to international markets,” he said.
New Democracy Interim President Evangelos Meimarakis accused Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of holding the September 20 elections before proceeding with implementation of harsh austerity measures like increased taxation and additional spending cuts and even accusing the Greek government of being close to taking peoples’ “keys to their own homes”.
Meimarakis and Tsipras had a spirited interaction with Tispras claiming that the New Democracy president is speaking as if the country is in a pre-election period. The SYRIZA leader also argued that this is the first time that a Greek government called elections after agreeing to a tough deal, in reference to the new bailout deal that includes reforms and austerity measures.
Meimarakis said “this will be the harshest winter Greece ever had,” referring to the tough measures and reforms the bailout program requires.
Wednesday’s vote concluded three days of parliamentary sessions on the new government’s agenda.
The parliament’s attention now turns to voting on the prior actions that must be legislated by mid-October if Greece is to receive two billion euros of bailout funds. This vote is expected to take place next week.
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