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Greek Parties Accuse Tsipras of Unduly Expediting Election Date

080715203817_7059Alexis Tsipras receives fire from political parties over his move to expedite elections for September 20 using allegedly undemocratic procedures.
New Democracy, PASOK, To Potami and Popular Unity accuse the prime minister for cunningly trying to speed up the elections before Greek people feel the burden of heavy taxation and wage and pension cuts the new bailout agreement entails.
Party leaders imply that the President of the Republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos is aiding Tsipras in accelerating procedures. Specifically, Pavlopoulos intends not to convene the Council of Political Leaders on completion of the exploratory mandates to form government from the present parliament. The Constitution provides that after the third unsuccessful exploratory mandate, the President contacts leaders of political parties and convenes a meeting to exhaust the possibility to form government.
Pavlopoulos argues that since SYRIZA, ANEL and the Greek Communist Party have stated that they will not participate in a government from the existing parliament, it is practically impossible to form government. Therefore, he said, he will speak with all party leaders over the phone to confirm that it is impossible to form a coalition government and move to the next step, which is to appoint Supreme Court President Vassiliki Thanou as transitional prime minister.
Party leaders say that the Constitution dictates that after the exploratory mandates are exhausted, all party leaders must convene under the President and discuss for the final time the possibility of forming a coalition government. Party leaders imply that Pavlopoulos wants to sidestep the meeting.
New Democracy chief Evangelos Meimarakis stated on Tuesday that, according to the Constitution, the President is obligated to call two meetings of political leaders: one for exploring the possibility of forming a coalition government from the present parliament and one after the exploratory mandates for the formation of a transitional government. Meimarakis said the President is bypassing those obligatory meetings because Tsipras does not wish to.
Panagiotis Lafazanis, leader of newly formed Popular Unity, appealed to the President of the Republic to not call elections before September 27, at the earliest.
PASOK and To Potami moved along the same line. PASOK leader Fofi Gennimata said it is unconstitutional to not call a meeting of party leaders. To Potami chief Stavros Theodorakis called Pavlopoulos on the phone and asked him to follow constitutional procedures.
On his part, the President of the Republic said that the Constitution says that it is not his responsibility to call a leaders’ meeting but it is up to party leaders to ask to convene. And since SYRIZA, ANEL, KKE and Golden Dawn did not ask for a political leaders’ meeting, he didn’t call one.

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