Greece on course for fresh election

ING Bank’s Paolo Pizzoli said Mr Tsipras was deliberately challenging opponents within Syriza, adding that should he fail to win an outright majority, any coalition would be likely to have a pro-bailout stance.

Nevertheless, Tsipras remains popular and Greeks generally support the bailout as the price of staying in the euro zone. But Skourletis said Tsipras should move faster.

In last Friday’s vote that approved the most recent bailout, the Prime Minister effectively lost his parliamentary majority.

In Berlin, the government said it expected Athens to press ahead with its reform agenda and the finance ministry said aid disbursements would be delayed should the elections cause any delay in an examination of the program.

Meanwhile, the leader of the conservative New Democracy Party, Vangelis Meimarakis, met with Greece’s president in Athens.

The Greek constitution grants the leaders of the largest three parties up to three days each to try to form a government.

Reports, meanwhile, said the radical Leftist wing of the Syriza party, who make up a third of the country’s MPs, will announce a formal breakaway from Syriza later tonight.

Senior aides, such as Energy Minister Panos Skourletis, said the split with the party rebels who are threatening to break away had to be dealt with.

According to Bloomberg, Skai TV in Greece is reporting that Tsipras will call for elections to be held on September 20.

“The way things are now … we believe it is impossible for this parliament to produce a government”, Theodorakis said after the meeting. They have three days to form a new government, which has been deemed unlikely by political experts.

In either event, the president of Greece’s supreme court, Vassiliki Thanou-Christophilou, a vocal opponent of Greece’s bailouts, was expected to be appointed caretaker prime minister to oversee a transitional government.

It came as Greece received its first 13 billion euro (£9 billion) payment as part of the package, following a hard-won agreement that will lead to a tough programme of spending cuts and tax rises.

Hugely popular among his supporters for trying to stand up to foreign creditors and with the opposition in disarray, Tsipras is widely expected to return to power. “Regardless of elections, reforms can now be implemented”.

This latest round of elections come as Syriza has splintered following the passage of Greece’s latest bailout package.

“Now that this hard cycle has ended… I feel the deep moral and political obligation to set before your judgment everything I have done, both right and wrong, the achievements and the omissions”.

He acknowledged Thursday the bailout deal was not what his government had wanted.

“I want to be honest with you”.

Tsipras won general elections in January on promises to repeal similar austerity measures attached to Greece’s two previous bailouts.