SYRIZA spokesman: Necessary majority of votes for the election of a new president does not exist

Commenting on the upcoming presidential election, Panos Skourletis, the spokesman of the main opposition Radical Left Coalition party (SYRIZA), said on Wednesday that the necessary majority of votes for the election of a new president by the present Parliament cannot be secured and that Greece is going to be led to general elections.

Turning to the government's decision to speed up the procedure, he said that the government, forced by developments, was trying to ensure a "dignified defeat" that is manageable in the forthcoming general elections.

Asked about the nomination of Stavros Dimas for President, the SYRIZA spokesman noted that the candidate selected was of lesser importance at the moment, noting that the dilemma raised was whether Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is going to be permitted to continue the current policy or whether his party's plan is going to be implemented, based on a fresh mandate by the people.

Skourletis then criticised Antonis Samaras saying that "based on the policy he implements he is proven to be unreliable, has no plan and acts in an opportunistic manner to the detriment of the country's interests and once again tries to deceive the Greek people."

He added that over the next two months the coalition government will attempt to tackle its own political dilemmas and hide its commitments to the lenders as they are expressed in Finance Minister Gikas Hardouvelis' mail, which was not refuted.

Turning to the issue of the Greek debt, Skourletis said that the negotiations are not going to begin for the sake of SYRIZA or Greece, but because a discussion has to open in Europe "on its policies of the dominant economic strategies". The debt's structure (most of the debt is institutional, to the ECB and European states' central banks) "allows us to open a discussion with a political approach," he said.

A dispatch from the state news agency claimed that Skourletis denied the rumors that DIMAR President Fotis Kouvelis will be a presidential candidate in the third round of the election in parliament, noting that DIMAR's and Kouvelis' stance on the issue is clear.

On the likelihood that ultra-right Golden Dawn MPs will support Stavros Dimas' candidacy, Skourletis responded that it will be unprecedented to use their votes for the election of Greece's president.

A meeting of SYRIZA's Political Secretariat focusing on the party's election campaign was scheduled to take place at noon, while regional party conferences in Crete, Thessaly and Peloponnese will take place during the weekend.