Prime Minister Antonis Samaras officially submitted a request for a confidence vote on Monday, the day the Parliament Plenary resumed work after the summer break. On Wednesday, a 3-day debate is to start while the voting is scheduled for Friday, October 10th 2014, at midnight. The request was submitted to the office of Parliament Speaker Evangelos Meimarakis.
With 153 seats in the Parliament of 300, Greek coalition government of conservative Nea Dimokratia and socialist PASOK is expected to win the vote of confidence.
Last week, PM Antonis Samaras and his deputy PM Evangelos Venizelos saw themselves in need to ‘refresh the public mandate’ after being confronted with massive pressure for early elections from main opposition party. Left-wing SYRIZA is constantly leading in public opinion polls since last August, when the government charged millions of Greek households with several hundreds euro in form of the new property tax.
The confidence vote is not expected to change much in the Greek politics except to display some kind of “unity” among the government lawmakers.
Snap polls are considered “inevitable” and would most probably take place in March 2015 as the coalition government is unlikely to get together 180 votes needed for the election of the next President of the Republic.
Since the beginning of 2014, Antonis Samaras, prime minister in a debt-ridden country and crisis-hit society, has repeatedly heralded a plan for growth and development. However, with 27% of the population damned to unemployment, the majority of Greeks have their doubts.
In the budget plan 2015 submitted today, the Finance Ministry foresees 2.9% growth for next year. However, without the guarantee for creation of proper jobs and salaries, the austerity-ridden Greek society will keep watching the train of Samaras’ “success story” passing by on high speed.
