251 Greek MPs Vote YES On Agreement With Creditors - But SYRIZA Suffers Serious Losses - BREAKING (VIDEOS)

The Greek Parliament on Saturday morning authorized the SYRIZA government to sign an agreement with creditors and avert a meltdown of Greece’s eurozone membership, with an unprecedented vote drawing cross-party support for a deal. Several ruling party MPs defied the party line and voted “present”, including outspoken Parliament President Zoe Konstantopoulou and two ministers.

In all, 251 MPs voted YES, eight voted “present” and 32 voted NO. A total of EIGHT SYRIZA MPs voted “present”, TWO voted against. Along with those absent.

Former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis was absent from the vote, as was Rachel Makri, an outspoken deputy who switched from the Independent Greeks’ party to radical left SYRIZA during the last election.

It was a nail biting vote that began on Friday afternoon and ended early Saturday morning a little after 3:30am. Throughout the live coverage (on quite a few television networks) attention was placed on the number of "defections" from coalition MPs.

Addressing the crucial debate before the vote, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said that there may be a "chance" for an agreement, but that nothing is certain and admitted that many mistakes were made by his government during its five months of negotiations.

     ""We want to prevent a political Grexit under an economic pretense. For six months I have done all that is humanely possible under difficult conditions, even under blackmail; I did not consider the political cost, I did not reconcile myself in order to ensure an easier hold on power,” Tsipras said.

Reference - SKAI Tv, ERT Tv, YouTube