Greek government formation, January

Greeks voted on Sunday in the first general election since the country emerged from international bailouts, with polls predicting the conservatives will return to power and end four years of leftist rule blamed for saddling Greece with more debt.

Pablo Iglesias, the leader of Spain's leftist Podemos party expressed support for Greek premier Alexis Tsipras as general elections got under way in the country, saying he had "the courage to govern with all Greek and European powers against [him]."

As Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis make their last campaign push ahead of Sunday's snap election, a new opinion poll by Pulse for Skai shows ND holding a firm 8-percentage point lead over leftist SYRIZA. 

With Sunday's election just days away, ruling SYRIZA and opposition New Democracy have embarked on a strategy to ensure that the country's smaller parties come up short and do not deny them crucial votes.

In a wide-ranging interview with Skai Television Tuesday night, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras engaged in broad self-criticism while holding up Greece's exit from the international bailouts and its contentious name deal with North Macedonia as his administration's two key achievements. 

In early January, 2015, when there were rumours that Yanis Varoufakis would be tapped as (what by all appearances would be) the incoming SYRIZA government, Alexis Tsipras received warnings from various quarters that it would be a wrong-headed choice.

The SYRIZA administration, which is nearing the completion of its term, could be summed up with the developments at Greece's Public Power Corporation. The country's biggest business is being kept on life support until the general election so that the next government will have to deal with its rescue.

It is highly improbable that Greece will be discussed during Thursday's Eurogroup in Luxembourg, a top eurozone official said Wednesday.
The same official said that the third report on Greece's enhanced post-program surveillance issued by the European Commission will be discussed by the eurozone finance ministry staff (Euro Working Group) after Greece's July 7 elections.

Greece is on track for a general election July 7, three months ahead of schedule, after the country's president accepted a request on June 10 by left-wing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to dissolve parliament in the wake his heavy defeat in European parliamentary elections.

The policies of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his finance minister at the time, Yanis Varoufakis, resulted in the imposition of capital controls in the summer of 2015. Greece found itself on the brink of default.