Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras Calls for New Elections
By NIKI KITSANTONIS and JIM YARDLEY

ATHENS — Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Greece called Thursday for new national elections in a bid to consolidate his power and press ahead with the 86 billion euro bailout plan he agreed to with European creditors.

Mr. Tsipras said in a nationally televised address that he would submit his resignation to Greece’s president, clearing the way for a vote on whether he and his leftist Syriza party should be returned to power with a new mandate. Officials said he would seek to schedule the vote for Sept. 20.

“Now it will be to the people to decide,” Mr. Tsipras said. “I feel the deep moral, political obligation to submit to your judgment. Your vote will determine if we represented you courageously in talks with the creditors, if this agreement is enough for us to emerge from the crisis.”

For weeks, Mr. Tsipras has been weighing new elections, amid a deep split among factions in Syriza over his embrace of the bailout plan. Elected in January, Mr. Tsipras took office as an anti-austerity renegade, pledging to win a better debt deal for Greece. Yet after several tumultuous months, the prime minister reversed course and agreed to a new bailout program with the country’s creditors: the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the other members of the eurozone.

The deal infuriated Syriza’s far-left factions and managed to pass through Parliament only with the help of opposition parties. Defections from Mr. Tsipras’s coalition had raised the possibility that he would not have the necessary support to prevail in a potential parliamentary test of confidence in his leadership — a possibility he avoided by calling for new elections.

He now seems to be positioning himself as more of a centrist but still populist leader, intent on carrying out the terms of the bailout in a way that minimizes the harm to those at the lower end of the economic scale while battling entrenched interests.

Some analysts had thought Mr. Tsipras might postpone snap elections until October, after the country faces the first review of its progress in meeting the terms of the bailout. Under the deal, Greece on Thursday received billions of euros in new aid from other eurozone countries, which the government used to repay existing debt, including a payment on government bonds held by the European Central Bank.

The payment to the central bank was made on Thursday, the day it was due. Failure to pay would have put Greece into default and provoked another crisis.

Critics say that the new bailout deal is merely a continuation of an austerity program that has driven the Greek economy to record levels of unemployment and a drastic downturn in economic output. Most of the new money allows Greece to meet obligations on existing debt but does little to rebuild the shattered national economy.

Earlier, Greece missed debt payments to the International Monetary Fund before Mr. Tsipras struck the new bailout deal, raising the prospect that it might leave the eurozone. It has since paid the money with the help of a temporary loan from other eurozone countries.

Less clear is whether Mr. Tsipras’s call for snap elections might further destabilize the Greek economy in the short term. Depositors have withdrawn about €40 billion from Greek banks since December, and officials had hoped the bailout deal, which includes money to recapitalize the banks, would serve as an assurance that the public could return money. Yields on Greek government bonds rose on Thursday, an indication that investors see more economic risk as the country heads into elections.

Politically, the most organized opposition within Syriza comes from Left Platform, a radical faction accounting for about a quarter of the party’s members of Parliament. The leader is the former energy minister, Panagiotis Lafazanis, who argues that Syriza was not elected to impose further austerity, and is calling for Greece to abandon the euro and return to its old currency, the drachma.

Several other Syriza lawmakers, including the Parliament speaker, Zoe Konstantopoulou, also object to the terms of the new bailout, which include strict spending limits, new tax increases and a rise in the retirement age, while also opening various parts of the Greek economy to greater competition.

In comments to reporters outside Parliament shortly before Mr. Tsipras’s address, the former minister and Left Platform member Dimitris Stratoulis hinted at the formation of a new breakaway party. “The ‘no’ of the people to austerity will find political expression in these elections,” he said, referring to last month’s referendum result. “The forces of ‘no’ inside and outside Syriza will be united.”

Mr. Tsipras is betting that Greek voters, weary of instability, will support him in a new vote and enable him to form a new government absent hard-line leftist dissenters. Despite his reversal on the bailout plan, Mr. Tsipras has remained highly popular, with the most recent polls in late July showing no other leader in a strong position to challenge him at this stage.

Some analysts wondered if Mr. Tsipras would try to form a new coalition with opposition parties in Parliament, including some that he has depicted as part of Greece’s corrupt establishment. But with the new election, Mr. Tsipras can try to win a clear endorsement, even if he may still be forced to build a new coalition.

In calling for a new vote, Mr. Tsipras will again be testing his connection to ordinary Greeks. In early July, after months of tough negotiations with lenders, the prime minister unexpectedly called a referendum on the lenders’ austerity proposals and asked voters to reject them with a “no” vote.

While he got his “no” vote, Mr. Tsipras did not win better terms from creditors and days later was forced to backtrack and agree on the new, tough bailout deal.

Early on Thursday, as rumors began to circulate that Mr. Tsipras would call for early elections, Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos, speaking in Parliament, said elections would not lead to political instability and called on Greeks to return their savings to banks.

“Now there is an agreement, there is a course ahead,” he said, referring to the latest bailout, which formally took effect on Thursday after approval on Wednesday by the German Parliament and European officials in Brussels.

The energy minister, Panos Skourletis, said on state television earlier in the day that elections were needed to deal with the split in Syriza. “The political landscape must be cleared up. We need to know whether the government has or doesn’t have a majority.”

黨內反叛 希臘總理將閃辭

國營的希臘廣播電視公司等多家媒體報導，希臘總理齊普拉斯將在當地時間廿日晚間宣布請辭，提前在九月廿日舉行國會大選。

希臘和歐盟達成新紓困案後，齊普拉斯領導的執政黨「激進左派聯盟」黨內強硬派相當不滿，認為他讓步太多。

歐洲穩定機制（ESM）十九日批准八百六十億歐元紓困希臘計畫後，希臘廿日已根據新紓困案拿到第一筆一百卅億歐元紓困款，隨即償付歐洲中央銀行的卅二億歐元的到期政府公債，避免對歐洲央行倒債。法新社報導，包含德國聯邦議院等歐洲國家國會通過紓困希臘方案後，相關資金已紛紛解凍。

不過，齊普拉斯取得紓困的條件，包括退休金改革、調高消費稅、出售五百億歐元國有資產等等，引發激進左派聯盟許多人不滿。英國廣播公司說，由於該黨許多國會議員脫黨，齊普拉斯陣營實質上已失去國會多數黨地位。

上周希臘國會表決紓困方案相關法案時，激進左翼聯盟有四十三名議員倒戈投下反對票或棄權票，占黨籍議員近三分之一，而且有議員公開與齊普拉斯決裂，表示將在黨內另立派別，反對實施財政緊縮措施。

齊普拉斯原本打算在國會舉行信任投票，但黨內反叛氣氛愈來愈濃，且希臘已確定獲得紓困款，決定直接提前舉行大選。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/21/world/europe/greek-prime-minister-alexis-tsipras-to-call-new-elections-minister-says.html

2015-08-21．聯合報．A13．國際．編譯組