Athens (BLAZETRENDS)
After holding a meeting today with the leaders of all the political parties, the country’s president, Katerina Sakelaropúlu, has appointed the president of the Court of Accounts, Ioannis Sarmás, interim prime minister, and has commissioned him to form a technical Executive that will lead the country to the new legislative elections within a month.
“It is my constitutional obligation to accept the mandate, but also my duty as a citizen,” the 66-year-old magistrate told the head of state, according to public television ERT.
Sarmás, who after serving as a magistrate of the Constitutional Court for six years held the presidency of the Court of Accounts in 2019, must choose the members of his cabinet until next Friday, the day on which they will be sworn in, according to the plan published by the local press.
On Sunday, May 28, the new Parliament arising from the legislative ones will be constituted, which will be dissolved the following day, Monday.
That same day the new elections will be called, in which the conservative New Democracy (ND) of the prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, starts as the favorite after the clear victory that he achieved on May 21 with 40.8% of the votes.
Its main rival, the opposition and leftist Syriza, only got 20%, a “painful” debacle as its leader, former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, has acknowledged.
Procedure meeting
After between Monday and Tuesday the candidates of the three most voted parties (in third place were the Social Democrats) returned without fulfilling the order to form a new government or refused to accept it, the head of state today summoned all the leaders to the seat of the presidency.
The meeting lasted only half a day today, and ended with the expected failure, since it was a formal step required by law as a last resort to try to form a new Executive.
Mitsotakis already spoke out on Sunday, after knowing the result of the vote, in favor of holding new elections.
In this way, he hopes to achieve, by virtue of a bonus of up to 50 seats to the most voted party, the absolute majority of deputies to govern alone.
The prime minister has advocated that the new elections take place on June 25.