Athens stumbles at first presidential poll hurdle

17/12/2014

By Kerin Hope

Greek lawmakers failed to elect Stavros Dimas as the country’s next president in Wednesday’s first-round vote, but the result indicated he could still scrape a win in the final ballot on Dec 29 and avert a snap general election.

Mr Dimas captured 155 votes from the governing coalition and another five from independent deputies. He needs 180 votes to secure victory in the third and final round.

“We got enough votes today to be in with a chance, though it will take some persuading to bring the rest on board,” said an official from the New Democracy party of Antonis Samaras, the prime minister.

But a former deputy with the PanHellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok), another coalition member, sounded doubtful Mr Dimas, a former European environment commissioner, could pull off a win. “Turning around as many as 20 deputies is a daunting task in a climate that’s already quite polarised . . . We may be set for an election next month,” he said.

Mr Samaras’s decision to bring forward the presidential election by two months has sparked turmoil on financial markets and prompted fears that prolonged political instability could even put at risk Greece’s membership of the eurozone.

Opinion polls suggest that the radical leftwing Syriza party, which wants to restructure Greece’s sovereign debt while boosting public spending in defiance of the country’s bailout agreement, would come first in a general election. Mr Samaras has warned that this would threaten a fragile economic recovery following an unprecedented six-year recession.

The premier said on Wednesday that a vote for Mr Dimas “is not considered a vote in favour of the government but . . . avoidance of a political adventure that could be fatal for the country’s European course.”

Syriza lawmakers shouted “Present” in an open roll-call vote by the speaker of parliament as a “No” is not permitted in a vote for electing a new head of state.

Alexis Tsipras, the Syriza leader, accused the premier of conspiring with the European Commission to frighten Greek MPs into backing Mr Dimas and avoid being forced into a general election.

“The scaremongering of the past few days didn’t work,” Mr Tsipras after Wednesday’s vote. “Democracy can’t be blackmailed.”

Political analysts said Mr Dimas would need to win votes from 24 unaffiliated MPs and two small opposition parties, the moderate Democratic Left and the rightwing Independent Greeks, which together control 22 seats. A second vote will be held on December 23.

The ballot has unleashed a frenzy of backroom dealing as New Democracy officials seek to persuade a collection of independent legislators and members of splinter parties to back their candidate.

An opinion poll published on Wednesday put Syriza 3.2 percentage points ahead of Mr Samaras’s centre-right New Democracy party, but indicated that 56 per cent of voters are opposed to holding an early general election.

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