Papandreou to Announce New Political Party By End of 2014

Ex-premier and former leader of the PASOK party George Papandreou is apparently ready to announce the formation of a new political party, and will finally formalize his immediate and definitive break from his father's PASOK party. HellasFrappe featured an article on this several days ago but it was still unknown when this would be. According to the Greek press Papandreou will make the announcement by December 30th, or a day after the third vote in parliament for the critical Presidential election.

Papandreou, who is expected to vote in favor of Stavros Dimas believes that the government is not going to secure the necessary 180 votes in the third vote to avert early elections, so he is preparing as quickly as possible.

He is going to have to rush, because if Parliament fails to vote for a president in the third vote then national elections will be called and the most logical date to hold them would be January 25th (or the first week of February).

On Tuesday, just a little before the second presidential vote PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos met with Papandreou but both men refused to comment on their discussion.

Political analysts believe that the two men discussed the possibility of early elections being called and how the latter may be included in PASOK’s ballots, in order to avoid the creation of a new party.

(Hmmmm... That means that Venizelos was ready to give him the boot!)