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After days of rumors about what the government would do next,
government officials said the previously cited option of a
confidence vote had been shelved and the idea of calling snap
polls as early as mid-September had become more likely.
Tsipras was huddling with senior advisers on Thursday afternoon
to decide his next move, a government official said.
"Everything is possible," the official told reporters when asked
whether Tsipras could announce elections later in the day.
ERT state television said the timing of snap elections would be
announced later on Thursday.
Tsipras had been widely expected to call snap polls at some
point in the autumn after a bruising seven months in office that
saw Greece nearly crash out of the euro zone and shut its banks
for three weeks to survive a battle with foreign creditors.
After campaigning against austerity, the 41-year-old leader last
month accepted an 86 billion euro bailout package from European
and International Monetary Fund creditors tied to tax hikes and
spending cuts under the threat of a banking collapse.
But votes in parliament to pass the stringent austerity measures
laid bare a revolt by nearly a third of Syriza lawmakers,
forcing Tsipras to rely on opposition support and robbing him of
a guaranteed parliamentary majority.
With the bailout approved in parliament and the first tranche of
aid disbursed - allowing Greece to repay debt to the European
Central Bank that fell due on Thursday - Tsipras can now focus
on taking on far-left party rebels who have threatened to
breakaway.
Energy Minister Panos Skourletis, a close Tsipras adviser, said
the split had to be dealt with. "The political landscape must
clear up. We need to know whether the government has or does not
have a majority," he told ERT.
(Writing by Deepa Babington, editing by Peter Millership)
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