Greek presidential vote, economy fears, go into second round
Athens (AFP) - Greece's high-stakes
presidential election -- and concerns about the future of its fiscal
reforms -- went into a second round Wednesday after parliament failed to
pick a head of state in a first ballot.
The
coalition government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras failed to muster
the required 200 out of 300 MPs to elect its nominee, former EU
Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas, meaning a second vote will be
held on December 23."The required majority has not been met, hence the vote will be repeated after five full days, on December 23," said parliament speaker Evangelos Meimarakis.
The official count showed a total of 160 deputies voted for Dimas, just five more than the government majority of 155 MPs.
"We have two more votes," the premier said in reaction to the result.
"The country is facing difficult conditions and I am certain that MPs realise that the country should not face an adventure," Samaras said.
Should a third and final round be required on December 29, Dimas will need just 180 votes for the post -- but a third failure will bring early elections.
"Clearly this result means early elections," said Panos Kammenos, leader of the small nationalist Independent Greeks party.
The government brought forward the election from February, when it will be locked in delicate negotiations with the cash-starved country's creditors, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
But the gamble to stave off uncertainty during those talks may well backfire, given the government's slender 155-seat majority in the chamber -- and the rise of the opposition radical leftist party Syriza, which wants to end a four-year austerity drive and re-negotiate Greece's bailout.
Analysts on Wednesday said the government was hoping to win over half a dozen opposition deputies tonight, and a few more next week, before the deciding vote on December 29.
But a number of deputies it had counted on voted the opposite way, or did not attend the session.
Conservative premier Samaras said just hours before lawmakers were due to vote that rejecting his presidential nominee could prove "fatal to the European development of the country".
Any snap elections would happen at a time when Syriza is leading opinion polls, and could therefore roll back years of painful reforms forced through by the government in exchange for bailouts worth 240 billion euros ($300 billion).
Samaras's gamble has sent shockwaves through the markets, with stocks in Athens last week losing more than a fifth of their value over four trading days.
They edged up on Wednesday and closed with a 3.33-percent gain.
The vote will be closely followed across Europe, where the fate of Greece, and its place in the eurozone, is not secure.
ING bank analysts said "today we have the beginnings of what could be a Greek tragedy," while IG analyst Stan Shamu said "the first round of voting in Greece... always has the potential to cause some volatility".
Bank of Greece chief Yannis Stournaras warned Monday that "the crisis of the last few days is now taking on a serious dimension".
A change in government could lead to market volatility that could pose a "great danger of irreparable damage to the Greek economy", Stournaras said.
Thibault Mercier, an analyst at BNP Paribas, said however that Greece's budgetary situation was better now than at the height of the Greek debt crisis in 2012.
The economy is forecast to grow at 2.9 percent next year, after six years of recession that left about a fifth of the population unemployed.
Its public deficit is now forecast to reach just 0.2 percent of output in 2015, down sharply from 15 percent just five years ago.
European Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici, on a visit to Athens on the eve of the vote, also argued the situation had improved since 2012.
"Greece's place is in Europe. That place is not threatened like it was in the past," he said.
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