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Antonis Samaras was Sworn in as Prime Minister of Greece

Antonis Samaras, leader of conservative Nea Dimocratia, was sworn-in as the 13th Prime Minister of Greece after the fall of military dictatorship in 1974. The ceremony took place at the Presidential Mansion with Archbishop of Athens and whole Greece Hieronymus blessing the new Greek PM.

“With God’s help will will do our best to take the country out of the crisis as soon as possible. With hard work we will try to give hope to the Greek people,” Samaras stated after the sworn-in ceremony.

Right after the ceremony, caretaker PM Panagiotis Pikrammenos gave the new PM the baton of power.

Samaras will lead a pro-bailout coalition government with PASOK and Democratic Left, a government that aims to launch renegotiation in the loan agreement between Greece and its lenders.

Right after June 17 elections Samaras had declared his aim to form a ‘national salvation government’. However left-wing SYRIZA, 2nd party, and nationalist Independent Greeks rejected Samaras’ offer.

 ND, PASOK and DEMLEFT hold together 179 seats in a parliament of 300.

At 7 p.m. Samaras will hold a meeting with Venizelos, Kouvelis and still caretaker Finance Minister Zannias who will represent Greece at the Eurogroup meeting tomorrow Thursday.

Samaras and his government partners will instruct Zannias about the message he would have to convey to Euro zone Finance ministers about the intentions of the new Greek government.

Now Greeks are puzzled about the new government’s ministers. Their names are expected to be announced this evening. State NET TV reported that the only minister confirmed is Vasilis Rapanos, President of National Bank, as Finance Minister.

The new government is expected to be sworn-in tomorrow.

Who is?

Antonis Samaras (born 23 May 1951) is an economist and politician who has been leader of New Democracy, Greece’s major conservative party, since 2009, and the country’s Prime Minister since 20 June 2012.  Samaras has also served as Minister of Finance in 1989, then Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1989 to 1990 and again from 1990 to 1992. Later, he was Minister of Culture in 2009.

He was known for the 1993 controversy, when he effectively caused the New Democracy government, of which he was a member, to fall from power.

In 1992 Samaras  as Minister for Foreign Affairs in the New Democracy government of PM Konstantinos Mitsotakis (1989–1992) was advocating a hard line on the “Macedonian Question“. After being removed from his post in 1992 over this issue, Samaras founded his own party, “Political Spring” [Greek: Πολιτική Άνοιξη], located politically to the right of New Democracy. The defection of one Member of Parliament from New Democracy to Samaras’ party caused the government’s fall from power in 1993.

 In spite of this he rejoined the party in 2004 and was elected to its leadership in a closely fought intra-party election in late 2009.He is the 7th leader of the party since it was founded in 1974.

Born in Athens, Samaras attended school in the Athens College and graduated from Amherst College in 1974 with a degree in economics, and then from Harvard University in 1976 with an MBA.

While in Harvard he used to share a room with formed Prime Minister George Papandreou.

Samaras is a member of the Greek Parliament for the prefecture of Messenia/Peloponnese (1977–1996 and 2007–present) as well as a former Finance, Foreign, and Culture Minister.

Attempt to form government in after May 6th elections.

Following the May 6 2012 elections  where the New Democracy party become the largest party in the Hellenic Parliament, Samaras was asked by Greek President Karolos Papoulias to form a government.

However, after just five hours of negotiations with the other parties, Samaras officially announced he was giving up to form government, passing the task to Alexis Tsipras, leader of the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), the second largest party. After both SYRIZA and PASOK failed to negotiate a successful agreement to form government, and emergency talks with the President ended without a government formed, voters once again took to the polls on 17th June 2011, with New Democracy coming out on top in a stronger position with 129 seats, compared to 108 before the June election. (Further reading on wikipedia)

PS Neither Samaras’ sworn-in, nor the news on the new Greek government impressed the markets. Athens Stock Exchange closed with +0.49% and the General Index at 603.04 points.

 

 

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7 comments

  1. iaourti iaourtaki

    God is not allowing to drive cars and other devilish mother earth rapists tools. Neither Koran nor bible allow such crimes, you sinners and non believers. So don’t talk about god with 3 fascists in the government. If you wanna create 1 million jobs just throw vodafone and all the other jobkillers out of the country and forbid the use of cell phones.

    • Much as I dislike cars and cellphones, I don’t recall the Koran or the Bible forbidding them!

      I also don’t follow the logic of creating jobs by removing Vodafone from Greece: it seems to be rather more efficient than OTE. Admittedly, it may be less good at creating unnecessary jobs, which OTE probably holds the world record for.

  2. Perfect. Now everything will be good. European press said so.

  3. Is that swearing in of Samaras not a bit premature?! Say there arises an insurmountable disagreement today over the details of the policy framework that officials from the three parties have been working on since Monday or the proposed ministers. And there will be no government because one of the parties is retracting it’s support. What will happen to PM Samaras?

    • keeptalkinggreece

      hehe, wanted to mention it as PS on “no ministers yet” post. No worries…
      insurmountable disagreement ” where did you read that???? no such signs in the Greek media…
      what would happen? he would take the crown off his head and go hide somewhere.
      it was a bit premature and odd but he would have to give back the mandate to the president today.

      • Read it nowhere. It was a “What if…” question, because I have seen governments stumble before they were sworn in. 😉