Kammenos urges President to step down, open way for snap poll

Panos Kammenos, leader of the right-wing anti-bailout Independent Greeks party, has called for Karolos Papoulias to quit as President and open the way for early elections.

“I believe that the President should facilitate [developments] by resigning. Why stay on until February or March and let the country be dragged in a four-month election campaign?” Kammenos said during a press conference in the northern port city of Thessaloniki on Wednesday.

He said that a new government could be formed by the end of December.

SYRIZA, Greece’s main opposition party which is leading in opinion polls, has said it will block the election of a new President after Papoulias’s term expires in February.

The conservative-led coalition will need a majority of 180 votes in the country’s 300-seat chamber to elect the next head of state. The coalition has 154 lawmakers in its ranks.