Greece crisis: PM Alexis Tsipras quits and calls early polls

[Bakis]

The saga continues. His position was shaky mildly speaking and this is not really a surprise and in line with Greece's history.
BBC source

Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has announced he is resigning and has called an early election.

Mr Tsipras, who was only elected in January, said he had a moral duty to go to the polls now a third bailout had been secured with European creditors.

The election date is yet to be set but earlier reports suggested 20 September.

Mr Tsipras will lead his leftist Syriza party into the polls, but he has faced a rebellion by some members angry at the bailout's austerity measures

If a government resigns within a year of election, the constitution requires the president to ask the second-largest party - in this case the conservative New Democracy - to try to form an administration.

If this fails, the next largest party must be given a chance.

Analysts say both parties can waive this and allow the president to approve the snap election.

However, New Democracy leader Vangelis Meimarakis said it was his "political obligation and responsibility to exhaust all the options", even though the numbers suggest he has little chance.

[Herecius]

Where does the money even go in Greece? I'm not being facetious, I cannot figure out where the money is vanishing into. It's supposedly being used to bail out banks, right? And this is the third such bailout so far, yes? So... where has the money been going? Has it somehow been making its way back out of the country?

I don't know enough about the Greek crises other than the entire thing has been an unmitigated disaster that will spell serious financial trouble for the entire Eurozone, and the rest of the world by extension, if the whole country defaults.

[Deleted]

Where does the money even go in Greece? I'm not being facetious, I cannot figure out where the money is vanishing into. It's supposedly being used to bail out banks, right? And this is the third such bailout so far, yes? So... where has the money been going? Has it somehow been making its way back out of the country?

I don't know enough about the Greek crises other than the entire thing has been an unmitigated disaster that will spell serious financial trouble for the entire Eurozone, and the rest of the world by extension, if the whole country defaults.

It has been going to private bank accounts in Switzerland.

[Bakis]

Reacting to the news, Martin Selmayr, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker's chief-of-staff, tweeted that "swift elections in Greece can be a way to broaden support" for the bailout deal.

Yes, how long ago when there was a pretty fat NO?
Go against the constituents again, repating old mistakes seem like the proper way to go.

[hellhamster]

Where does the money even go in Greece? I'm not being facetious, I cannot figure out where the money is vanishing into. It's supposedly being used to bail out banks, right? And this is the third such bailout so far, yes? So... where has the money been going? Has it somehow been making its way back out of the country?

I don't know enough about the Greek crises other than the entire thing has been an unmitigated disaster that will spell serious financial trouble for the entire Eurozone, and the rest of the world by extension, if the whole country defaults.

Refinancing the banks, buying up debt, paying back debt, maturing debt.

[Mihalik]

Has anyone published any information on how much does it cost the Greek government to hold an election every 3 months? I mean organizing elections costs money, you need staff, security, transportation, communication, oversight, campaigning etc.

Is holding an election every 3 months part of some economic stimulus package and jobs program?

Tho seriously. Greece needs to grasp that political instability DOESN'T help. Considering that Tsipras seems to have finally realized that he needs to abide by Greece's obligations, perhaps once reelected he will spend the next 4 years bringing some degree of stability to his country.

I can't believe it got to a point where Tsipras is the reasonable one in Greece.

[hellhamster]

I'm gonna say this once as to what exactly happened today for the ones who are genuinely interested, before all the neo-liberals crawl of the woodwork and shit up the thread:

Tsipras is the leader of Syriza. Syriza is a coalition of many left parties, ranging from center to far left ideologies. Tsipras united those parties, created Syriza, and managed to win the January 2015 elections with the promise to alleviate austerity. Syriza were kept united by that common goal, as well as Tsipras taking a political position that is considered common ground for everyone in his party.

However, with the latest events in which Tsipras managed to deny Varoufakis' plan (his Finance Minister) to create a secondary currency within Greece, as well as completely bending over to the creditors (in which case he was absolutely powerless and had no actual ammunition), his party protested loudly against the deal he took that will lead to even more austerity. Dissent within his party was created, Syriza became unstable and started to crumble, with the far left and radical part of the party being the first ones to break away from Tsipras. This caused innumerable problems for Tsipras, because his government was effectively dismantled.

His only solution was to resign, setup a temporary prime minster and reorganize his party to appear more center-ish and in line with the new memorandum, to be ready for the snap elections in September.

[Deleted]

This is the downside of democracy ladies and gentlemen.

[hellhamster]

This is the downside of democracy ladies and gentlemen.

"Democracy is just a fad, a meme if you will."

~Plato.

Plato is always right by the way.

[hellhamster]

He just wants to have elections now, before people actually feel the true extent of the tax hikes and policy changes which could well cost him the popular vote. Right now he will cruise through the elections (possibly even get a majority).

I cannot fathom how he can straight up lie and say "This is the best deal anyone could have gotten". Well yes, after squandering any goodwill and causing panic and uncertainty in the economy for six months, it probably was the best deal . . .

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Ofc Plato is always right Why have we not abolished families and starting raising our children in a communal manner by professional caregivers yet? (Seriously, why? It is the most rational thing to do!)

I love Plato

I think a majority is pretty much a given. All other political options have been exhausted, minus Golden Dawn and some 1% filler moderate parties.

[Deleted]

I think a majority is pretty much a given. All other political options have been exhausted, minus Golden Dawn and some 1% filler moderate parties.

Wait? The Greek people still stand behind him after his "deal"? Or is it really just due to lack of ANY better?

[hellhamster]

Wait? The Greek people still stand behind him after his "deal"? Or is it really just due to lack of ANY better?

Guess. We have no options left, we are fucked whatever happens. Also, Greeks generally don't want to hear about politicians for a very, very long time.

[Cyberowl]

Where does the money even go in Greece? I'm not being facetious, I cannot figure out where the money is vanishing into. It's supposedly being used to bail out banks, right? And this is the third such bailout so far, yes? So... where has the money been going? Has it somehow been making its way back out of the country?

I don't know enough about the Greek crises other than the entire thing has been an unmitigated disaster that will spell serious financial trouble for the entire Eurozone, and the rest of the world by extension, if the whole country defaults.

Well, a shit ton of money will go to the banks again, because the whole soap opera made people cash out most of the banks assets and they will be cautious putting it back to the banks, but they need the capital anyways.

[Deleted]

Guess. We have no options left, we are fucked whatever happens. Also, Greeks generally don't want to hear about politicians for a very, very long time.

Well my guess would be there is no better, but I don't know enough about the other political parties so I asked. I was especially surprised at your "majority is a given".

[Masark]

Where does the money even go in Greece? I'm not being facetious, I cannot figure out where the money is vanishing into. It's supposedly being used to bail out banks, right? And this is the third such bailout so far, yes? So... where has the money been going? Has it somehow been making its way back out of the country?

I don't know enough about the Greek crises other than the entire thing has been an unmitigated disaster that will spell serious financial trouble for the entire Eurozone, and the rest of the world by extension, if the whole country defaults.

It goes out of Greece, into the non-Greek banks who hold Greek bonds.

If they stop bailing out "Greece" (really, The EU is bailing out their own banks, not Greece), banks throughout the Eurozone are suddenly left holding sacks full of worthless bonds, which will end up being something of a crisis.

[Cyberowl]

It goes out of Greece, into the non-Greek banks who hold Greek bonds.

If they stop bailing out "Greece" (really, The EU is bailing out their own banks, not Greece), banks throughout the Eurozone are suddenly left holding sacks full of worthless bonds, which will end up being something of a crisis.

That's so 2011. Most of the debt went from private holders to official institutions.

[hellhamster]

Well my guess would be there is no better, but I don't know enough about the other political parties so I asked. I was especially surprised at your "majority is a given".

Well to be frank, people know that there is no way out, we had a small glimmer of hope in January that all the pain and agony and poverty and loss of humanity we endured in the last 5 years could be alleviated by creditors that would show leniency and better terms. Obviously that didn't happen, and not only that, all the horrors of the crisis of the last 5 years are going to be doubled. We realize that, so our only course of action is to lube up, bend over and make the preparations for the transition towards a third memorandum, which is going to happen regardless, in order to make it somewhat less painful for the average Greek. Syriza is likely the only party that may hope to achieve that, as there are already talks of debt restructuring.

[Elhaym]

"Democracy is just a fad, a meme if you will."

~Plato.

Plato is always right by the way.

I prefer Nietzsche's quote from der wille zur macht

"Nachos are cool"

Seriously, plato didn't say jack about memes. The term meme is derived from a greek word (and does not literally mean the same thing) but was coined in the 1970s. So no, please don't quote plato talking about memes or using the word fad.

[Grimbold21]

There's no way that Syriza wins again, not with Tsipras as it's face. A man who campaigned on the premiss that the austerity days were done in Greece and then caves in at the end?

[hellhamster]

Let's see . . .
There is the Communist Party which is actually on record saying they never want to rule (seriously, someone should ban them from elections already)
There is PASOK which engineered state corruption whose voters are senile people who forgot to die or those who have enormously profited from the party and have absolutely no shame
There is New Democracy which never run a true opposition to PASOK and for the three years it did rule pretty much focused on stealing part of the cake for it's own constituents
There is Golden Dawn who are unabashedly fascists
And there will probably be a radical left party by Lafazanis who wants us to go to the drachma, even though they know they have no plan, no way to actually do the transition and mostly are just objecting in a horror child's game of "Who is the most leftist!" with the rest of Syriza.
And then there is Tsipras.

Honestly, I'd rather burn the ballot.

That feel when bro, that feel when...