Greek president sets snap elections for September 20

Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos has signed a decree setting September 20 as the date for snap elections in the country.

According to the ANA news agency, the presidential decree, which was issued on Friday, dissolved the country’s parliament and stated that the chamber would reconvene on October 1.

Pavlopoulos’ decree came after last week’s resignation of Prime Minister Alexi Tsipras, who proposed the same date for early elections in the country.

Tsipras’ decision to step down came amid a rift in his ruling leftist Syriza party over the conditions of a third bailout deal agreed between the Athens government and its international creditors.

The former prime minister was accused of what opponents called reneging on his anti-austerity promises, which had brought him to power in January elections.

Caretaker administration

The development comes a day after top judge Vassiliki Thanou was appointed country’s acting prime minster.

The interim cabinet, which was sworn in on Friday, may be in power for less than a month; however, it will oversee the implementation of several of the austerity measures demanded by the international lenders in exchange for a new aid package.

Thanou, who is Greece’s first female premier, is strongly opposed to the fresh wave of austerity measures imposed on the debt-ridden country.

She told European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in a letter in February that austerity cuts were “annihilating” the Greek people.

Public opinion

The developments come as the first major opinion poll after calls for a snap elections found small support for Tsipras’ resignation.

Some 64 percent of those interviewed by pollsters ProRata said Tsipras was wrong to call the snap poll, compared to 24 percent who considered it a correct move. The remainder had no idea.

Syriza remains as the most popular party in Greece, but a recent poll published in the left-leaning Efimerida ton Syntakton newspaper showed the party’s approval ratings were sliding since early July, before a referendum in which the Greeks responded positively to Tsipras’ call for a ‘No’ vote against the austerity reforms under a third bailout program.

Eurozone finance ministers approved Greece’s third debt bailout on August 14 after the Greek parliament endorsed the rescue package following a tough all-night debate.

Greece received two bailouts in 2010 and 2012 worth a total of 240 billion euros (USD 272 billion) from the troika of international lenders – the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – following the economic crisis that hit Greece in 2009.

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