Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras finally arrived at the presidential mansion in Athens – just across the side street from his Maximos Mansion office – on Monday afternoon to request the dissolution of Parliament and the declaration of a snap election for July 7 – two weeks after suffering a convincing defeat in the Europarliament election.
In a brief discussion with Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos, in front of waiting cameras, Tsipras said an extended election period could harm the national economy. At the same time, he kept his beleaguered government in office and a slim Parliament majority active in passing last-minute legislation over the past two weeks, including numerous transfers of civil servants, appointments of top bureaucrats and even changes to the penal code.
Tsipras and his hard leftist SYRIZA trailed main opposition New Democracy (ND) by 9.5 percentage points in the European Parliament election, and also fizzled out in practically every municipal and regional government race that a SYRIZA-backed candidate stood in.
