Zoe Konstantopoulou

Speaker of the House Zoe Konstantopoulou, a high profile Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) cadre, appears to be on a direct collision course with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who she is meeting at noon on Thursday.

Thirty-one ruling SYRIZA MPs failed to “toe the party line” during the early morning vote in Parliament on a second package of prior actions linked to the third bailout memorandum agreed to with creditors last week. If the abstainers are included, 36 ruling party deputies did not ratify the bill.

Other political leaders’ statements from Parliament in the early morning (!) hours of Thursday on on the second package of prior actions envisioned in a memorandum for a third Greek bailout:

Potami party leader Stavros Theodorakis:

“Government’s handling of economic crisis brought the country to a worse state than previous situation”

Main opposition New Democracy (ND) president Vangelis Meimarakis employed past descriptions used by ruling leftist SYRIZA party — when it was in the opposition — to ask whether “coup instigators” and “criminals of Europe” gave us the money to remain alive?

Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos has declined a written request by Parliament President Zoe Konstantopoulou to brief his counterparts over the latter’s claim that proper constitutional and Parliamentary procedures were not followed in the case of the two bailout-linked draft bills on prior actions.

The latest obstacle in the vote for a second package of prior actions via an emergency procedure emerged ominously on Wednesday in the form of non other than Parliament President Zoe Konstantopoulou, a high-profile SYRIZA cadre who appears on a direct collision course with the SYRIZA government and PM Alexis Tsipras.

Both top opposition leaders, center-right New Democracy’s (ND) president Vangelis Meimarakis and centrist Potami party leader Stavros Theodorakis warned this week against snap elections in the country.
Crisis-plagued Greece last held elections in January, with leftist SYRIZA taking power in a coalition with the rightist-populist Independent Greeks’ (AN.EL) party.

Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras managed to pass through a third austerity memorandum himself, one that he doesn’t believe in. In the process, he lost his coalition government’s majority with a quarter of SYRIZA MPs dissenting and the rest appearing to vote under duress.

Sunday, July 5

61.31% of Greek voters rejected the terms of a bailout proposition put forth to Greece by its EU creditors by voting ‘No’ in a fast-track referendum championed by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and the Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) government.

Monday, July 6

There was speculation as to what stand Zoe Konstantopoulou would  take concerning the fast-track voting of legislation imposed by Greece’s partners in exchange for funds for Greece.