ANTONIS SAMARAS, the centre-right Greek prime minister, lost one election on December 29th. Now he will have to fight another. His New Democracy party’s candidate for president, Stavros Dimas, fell 12 votes short of the required three-fifths majority in a third and final ballot by Greece’s 300 MPs. As the constitution demands, a snap general election will now be held on January 25th. ND is trailing the far-left Syriza opposition, according to the opinion polls. Once again, the prime minister’s chances of victory look slim.
Mr Samaras made two television appeals for lawmakers to back Mr Dimas, a former European environment commissioner, for the ceremonial post. His election would have kept the fragile ND-led coalition in power long enough to negotiate an exit from Greece’s unpopular austerity programme with the European Union and IMF, including a precautionary credit line from the euro-zone bail-out fund. Many independent and opposition lawmakers who rejected Mr Dimas are unlikely to be re-elected, yet not even self-interest persuaded them to back the government.
Such stubbornness heralds a bad-tempered election campaign. Alexis Tsipras, Syriza’s radical leader, calls Mr Samaras “finished”. He plans to renegotiate Greece’s bail-out. Although he no longer threatens to halt debt repayments unilaterally if his party comes to power, he still wants to secure a big write-off. Greece’s creditors would oppose that, and also Mr Tsipras’s proposals to reverse other reforms and launch a €11 billion ($13 billion) welfare package, to be financed by better tax collection. With more than €7 billion of lending suspended until Athens reaches agreement with its “troika” of creditors on more tax, labour and pension reforms, Greece will soon run into trouble. Hard-pressed taxpayers are already struggling; more than €1 billion of income and property tax goes uncollected every month. Mr Tsipras’s promises sound alluring to angry, impoverished Greek voters.
Yet some left-wingers are suspicious. “How can Greece dictate terms to the troika when they control the purse-strings?” asks Lefteris Maniatakis, a former employee of the state electricity company. “Over the past four years we’ve seen every government resist their demands at first, but give in eventually.”
Greece in graphics - a guide to the country's upcoming elections
Mr Samaras hopes to shrink and perhaps reverse Syriza’s lead over the course of the campaign. He can cite a modest recovery, with GDP growth likely to reach 0.6-0.8% in 2014 thanks to a successful summer tourist season, improved exports and increased EU subsidies for infrastructure projects. Another tactic will be to stress the risks posed by a hawkish but inexperienced left-wing Syriza-led government. Greek shipowners, worried they could be hit by a new wealth tax, are already pulling deposits out of local banks. Small savers could follow their example, fearing a repetition of the 2013 bail-in of depositors in Cyprus.
Even if Syriza wins on January 25th, it may fall short of an overall majority. Mr Tsipras speaks of a government with Syriza as its “core”. At least four small parties are likely to win more than 3% of the vote and enter parliament, but only the PanHellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok) and To Potami (The River), a new centre-left party led by Stavros Theodorakis, a television journalist, look like possible coalition partners. Mr Tsipras is used to making alliances: he has to keep his own party’s disruptive far-left faction on board. Even so, it could be hard for Syriza to work with either Pasok, which has been ND’s junior coalition partner for two-and-a-half years, or a cocky newcomer like Mr Theodorakis.
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In 2012 an inconclusive election was followed by another a month later. This time, the deadlines are tighter: a two-month extension to Greece’s bail-out expires at the end of February, increasing the pressure on the election winner to form a government fast. Greece’s latest political flare-up might yet turn into another extended crisis.