EUROZONE-GREECE/SYRIZA REAX Greeks back PM as Tsipras asserts control over party

Record ID: 135639

  • Title: EUROZONE-GREECE/SYRIZA REAX Greeks back PM as Tsipras asserts control over party
  • Date: 31st July 2015
  • Summary: ATHENS, GREECE (JULY 31, 2015) (REUTERS) SYNTAGMA SQUARE / PARLIAMENT BUILDING FOUNTAIN IN SQUARE PEOPLE WALKING BY FOUNTAIN GREEK FLAG FLUTTERING PEOPLE WALKING NEAR UNDERGROUND STATION (SOUNDBITE) (Greek) 65-YEAR-OLD PENSIONER, EFI, SAYING: "Since he (Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras) started with his programme they should let him continue with it and conclude it. His
  • Embargoed: 15th August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Greece
  • Country: Greece
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA87PZO4BAMVE88AQY8SPURP4Q
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Greeks said on Friday (July 31) they supported Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras who is struggling to contain a far-left revolt in his left-wing Syriza party.
    Tsipras' critics are against the bailout deal signed with the country's lenders this month.
    But many voters want Tsipras to continue the talks despite his sudden U-turn to accept the stringent terms of the package.
    "Since he (Tsipras) started with his programme they (the government) should let him continue with it and conclude it. His own people shouldn't fight him and cause a split," said pensioner Efi.
    Self-employed Eleni Dimitriou said Greece needed stability.
    "Now is not a good time for the country to have elections, it's far too soon. We must go on with the negotiations to get an agreement and have things go back to normal. Let us wait to see what happens because there are a lot of issues pending for months and we've found ourselves moving backwards," she said.
    Shop owner George Tsiotras was more pessimistic.
    "This fighting will go on. I think it will last and it will lead us into a dead-end. The crisis will go on. That's what I think," he said.
    Insurance consultant Miltiades Charalambos said without the internal bickering, the government had a good chance to achieve something.
    "He (Tsipras) found himself trapped and perhaps they (the government) had overestimated their power. But I want to believe that now they will get more serious and they will manage to gain some time so that they can change things," he said.
    At a meeting of the governing Syriza movement's 200-member central committee on Thursday (July 30), Tsipras defended his decision to accept the harsh bailout terms as the best deal anyone could win for Greece.
    He threw down the gauntlet before his critics by proposing an immediate membership ballot on the bailout negotiation, but said his preference was for Syriza to hold an emergency congress in September to deliberate strategy.
    After hours of debate, the committee backed his proposal in a show of hands.
    The emergency congress will allow Tsipras to bring in new members and capitalise on the wider public support he has secured over the past two years, making it easier to defeat the far-left camp.
    On the sidelines of the all-day Syriza meeting, party officials spoke openly of a widening rift between those who want the country to stay in the euro area despite painful sacrifices and leftists who would prefer a return to the drachma currency.
    But Left Platform leader Panagiotis Lafazanis said the bailout deal betrayed the party's principles.
    "We believe that Syriza should not be involved in a new bailout, and we will fight, in a democratic matter and within our party, so that our party will commit itself to not supporting, after all, a new bailout," he said.
    Syriza party member Despina Spanou said the leftist's 'wait and see' attitude did not work.
    "It's not so simple because afterwards, you will not be able to change anything, you can't, as they are saying, say we will see what we can do after we disentangle ourselves, how can you when you have put a noose around your neck?," she said.
    The prospect of an early election if the party does not unite is looming in the background.
    Syriza party member Haris Golemis urged elections to confirm public support.
    "There is a need for fresh elections in order to see if under these new circumstances, the people agree with what we have decided to do."
    Technical experts representing Greece's international creditors - European Commission, the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the euro zone's rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) - are currently in Athens, laying the groundwork for the third bailout programme which the country needs to be able to stay in the euro zone.
    A deal on a new bailout programme needs to be reached by August 20 when Greece is due to pay 3.4 billion euros to the ECB.
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