25 MPs leave Syriza to form new party ahead of Greece snap vote

Over two dozen hardliners have pulled out of Greece’s ruling leftist Syriza party in an attempt to form what will be the third largest group in the parliament ahead of the country’s snap elections.

In a letter to the parliament on Friday, 25 Syriza members announced their decision to leave the party, citing dissatisfaction with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ decision to renew the controversial bailout program.

“In line with our electoral pledges, we are departing from the parliamentary group we formerly belonged to and are forming a new independent parliamentary group,” read the statement issued by the disgruntled far-leftist politicians.

The new party, which is called Popular Unity, will be led by Panagiotis Lafazanis, a former minister in Tsipras’ cabinet.

The group will be the third largest in the Greek parliament, after Syriza with 124 seats and the conservative New Democracy party with 76 in the 300-seat legislature.

“We will become a major and decisive political force,” Lafazanis vowed, adding that the group will do its utmost “to express the spirit and substance of the 62 percent who voted no to austerity,” referring to the results of a July referendum in which Greeks overwhelmingly expressed their opposition to the bailout deals.

He also said Athens’ possible exit from the eurozone would be “orderly,” saying his party aims to cancel the recent deal with the country’s international creditors - the European Central Bank (ECB), the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“If it is necessary for us to cancel the memorandum, we will follow the course of exiting the euro,” he stressed.

The remarks came a day after Tsipras announced his resignation and proposed calling snap elections in the debt-ridden country on September 20.

“I will shortly meet with the president of the republic and present my resignation and that of my government,” Tsipras said after losing a considerable number of his supporters in the parliament.

Earlier in the month, Greek lawmakers, many of them from the opposition parties, approved an 85-billion-euro rescue package, the third of its kind, in an attempt to prevent the country from defaulting on its huge debts.

The decision to renew the bailout program garnered harsh criticism within the ruling party and dozens of Syriza MPs voted against the deal.

Greece received two bailouts in 2010 and 2012 worth a total of EUR 240 billion (USD 272 billion) from its troika of international lenders following economic crisis in 2009.

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