SYRIZA's Tsipras calls for early elections in meeting with President Papoulias

Main opposition Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) leader Alexis Tsipras on Monday called for the conduct of national elections in his meeting on Monday with Republic President Karolos Papoulias citing “major discord” between the electorate and parliament. At the same time, he issued a number of warnings to Prime Minister Antonis Samaras as regards the latter's moves and decisions.
Tsipras called on Samaras “not to even think” of proceeding with the implementation of more measures or the appointment of a new Bank of Greece (BoG) governor and EU Commissioner without the agreement of the country's biggest political party.
While leaving the Presidential Mansion, he said that the election results create a new political landscape in the country and spoke about a historical upset and the creation of a new correlation of powers.
Tsipras underlined that this upset is evident not only as a result of SYRIZA's 4.0 percentage point lead in Sunday's European elections but also because the parties of the government coalition lost 11 percentage points compared with the 2012 results.
He referred to his party's victory and the loss of voter support on the part of the coalition government partners of New Democracy (ND) and PASOK, underlining that this constitutes major disharmony between electorate and parliament and that when such a disharmony is being recorded, no one has the mandate to proceed with crucial decisions that are binding for the country, noting that the present parliament cannot elect a President.
He underlined that the people will have to go to the polls in a smooth way to ensure that democratic normalcy in the country will be restored.
Referring to the prime minister, he said that in politics and in real life one should know how to win and how to lose and called on him not to consider taking the new measures he has in store, like wage and pension cuts, or proceed with privatisations and the sell off of public property.