Galery

1

Just hours after SYRIZA won the European elections in Greece, party leader Alexis Tsipras called for "early elections, as soon as possible and in an organized manner, to restore the democratic order." He delivered the proposal of the radical left during his visit to Greece’s President Karolos Papoulias.

According to Alexis Tsipras, the election results show a discrepancy between the will of the voters and the proportion between the parties in parliament. For this reason, the present composition of the parliament has no jurisdiction to take crucial decisions or to choose the next President.

"The election result is creating an entirely new political reality. It is leading to a historic turnaround and new proportions of the political forces," Tsipras explained his decision to call for early elections. According to SYRIZA, not only the mere victory of the party by a margin of 4% is crucial for this, but also the fact that the two parties involved in the government coalition (New Democracy and PASOK – author’s note) lost over 11% of their results compared to the parliamentary elections in 2012.

"If parliamentary elections had been held yesterday, the two parties would have had a total of 94 members instead of the 162 they have today," he said and explained that the decision of SYRIZA to call for early elections relates to the need to eliminate the imbalance between the will of the voters and the power of the parties in parliament.

Alexis Tsipras sharply criticized the government and personally Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, whom he urged "not to consider implementing the plans that are in his drawers. He should not even think of applying new measures for budget cuts."

In the same strict tone, SYRIZA's leader urged the government not to trigger any procedures in connection with the privatization of the national water supply company and of "appetizing" parcels of public property such as coastal areas. He warned Prime Minister Samaras not to proceed to the appointment of the new director of the Bank of Greece, nor of Greece’s commissioner in the new European Commission "without the consent of the biggest party in the country."

Earlier in his conversation with President Papoulias in front of television cameras, Alexis Tsipras defined the present day as "very good, although some were "terrorizing" the citizens on Saturday, arguing that if SYRIZA won by 2-3% this would cause famine, earthquakes and major disasters."

"We won by 4% but today is a very good day and I hope that the coming days will be good as well," said Tsipras.

A little later it became clear that Prime Minister Antonis Samaras will visit President Karolos Papoulias at 1:00 pm on Thursday. At 6:00 pm the same day, he will meet with coalition partner Evangelos Venizelos to discuss the results of the European elections and their joint actions in the coming months.

According to an adviser to Samaras, there will certainly be changes in the composition of the cabinet. According to him, Samaras and Venizelos will also discuss all the options to extend this parliamentary majority, in view of the poor results and the changes that they might provoke among Independent Greeks, Democratic Left, the Homeland and People’s Union party formed by deputies who have disaffiliated from the right wing and the group of independent deputies.