Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has warned rebels in his Syriza party that he could be forced to call snap elections if he no longer has a parliamentary majority.
“I would be the last person to want elections, if I had the secured parliamentary majority to make it through to the end of the four-year term,” he told in a wide-ranging radio interview on Wednesday. “But if I don’t have a parliamentary majority, we will be forced to go to elections.”
In a vote three weeks ago, Tsipras effectively lost his majority in parliament, when about three dozen of his own 149 members of Parliament refused to support the measures. Pro-European Union opposition parties were left to save the bill.
Since then, far-left dissenters have grown more defiant and Tsipras will battling to keep control of Syriza at an emergency meeting of the party's 200 member central committee —the body that sets the party's policies— on Thursday.
The central committee could decide whether to hold an emergency congress in September to look at the direction of the party and hammer out persistent disputes over the bailout terms or hold a referendum of Syriza members to decide whether the negotiations should proceed. If the committee decides to hold a referendum, it could take place this weekend.
Tsipras said he expects all party members to support the government’s efforts until the August 20 deadline, when the bailout agreement is finalized and the country has escaped the danger of bankruptcy, before setting in motion any inner-party changes.
The main bloc of dissidents stems from the Left Platform, a far-left faction within Syriza that is calling for Greece to leave the euro. Other left deputies, include those of the “Internationalist Worker Left” (DEA) and of the Communist Organization of Greece (KOE).
Members of the Left Platform have called on the government to “immediately stop the negotiations, which are leading to a third bailout” and look for an “alternative solution to the creditors’ blackmail.”
Another fraction within Syriza is the group of “the 53” this split to the left was presented publicly through an open letter signed by 53 Syriza cadres. The group of “the 53” is expected to back the Prime Minister's decisions even though they have occasionally maintained a critical stance.