SYRIZA cabinet members have leaked scenarios of snap elections or referendum if Greece does not come up with an agreement with creditors until June, when the bailout extension expires.
Sources close to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said that this is not his first choice. However, certain close associates noted that such scenarios are possible.
Government Vice Pesident Yiannis Dragasakis spoke to Greek newspaper “To Vima” on Sunday saying that Athens will resort to elections or referendum if negotiations come to a deadlock.
Similar statements were made by State Minister Yiannis Flabouraris and Parliament Vice President Alexis Mitropoulos. From Brussels, MEP Costas Chrysogonos said that if creditors follow a hard line, Greece should seek elections or a referendum.
SYRIZA’s leftist platform is in favor of a rift and exit from the Eurozone. Productive Reconstruction Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, who represents the more extreme leftist fraction within SYRIZA, spoke to “Agora” business newspaper and used harsh terms about Greece’s European partners, calling them “neo-colonialists.” He said that the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) “wish the submission and surrender of Greece.”
The more conservative side of SYRIZA, the “realists” as analysts call them, call for a “brave compromise” that will not endanger Greece’s place in the Eurozone. MEP Dimitris Papadimoulis called on Tsipras to put an end to talks about a default and collision with Europe and the IMF, and work on an “honest compromise.”
Those who stand in the middle ground are SYRIZA cabinet members who want an “honest compromise” but not at the expense of the party’s campaign pledges. Minister of Economy, Infrastructure, Shipping and Tourism Giorgos Stathakis is one who belongs to that group.
Menwhile, opposition parties are against elections or a referendum. New Democracy spokesperson Costas Karagounis commented on cabinet members’ statements saying that a referendum would mean that the SYRIZA-ANEL coalition government has come to a dead-end.
Karagounis further said that a referendum would in essence ask the Greek people if they want to stay in the Eurozone or not. But SYRIZA’s election pledge was to stay in the euro and the popular mandate that SYRIZA claims so often is in fact the Greek people’s will to stay in the Eurozone.
“The thought alone of a referendum would be an admission that the government is at a dead-end. If they go ahead with that, it would be a tragedy. It would be more honest for the government to admit that all those things they promised to the Greek people were infeasible,” Karagounis said.
Along the same lines, PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos said on Greek television that a referendum would be a disaster. “Everyone in the world would know that the referendum would be for Greece’s stay in the Eurozone,” he said.
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