(Reuters) -
Four years after a messy descent into emergency funding to stave off
bankruptcy, Greece's government is trying to pull the plug on a deeply
unpopular bailout program to secure its own survival.
It is a gamble with high stakes for the
Greek economy and Athens' relations with its euro zone peers. Failure by
Samaras to get his presidential nominee elected would trigger new polls that
his anti-austerity rivals would almost certainly win.
In Berlin earlier this week, Samaras for the
first time publicly acknowledged that Athens hoped to wean itself off a
240-billion-euro ($305-billion) EU/IMF aid package a year before its scheduled
end in early 2016.
He offered no details, but Athens is
calculating that declaring an end to the reviled bailout could be just the
political game-changer it needs, with the end of bailout funding from the
European Union in December offering a logical moment to seal the exit of the
International Monetary Fund as well.
"It makes political sense, completely
100 percent," a source familiar with the discussions said. "The IMF
is not pushing to leave, the government is pushing for it."
Pulling this off, however, will almost
certainly require Athens to notch up rapid-fire successes on several fronts - a
swift end to its current bailout review, securing debt relief and the backing
of European partners for going it alone.
In addition, forgoing over 12 billion euros
in IMF loans and finding its own financing, just two years after a sovereign
debt restructuring, remains a risky bet.
"If Greece completes this review with
the blessing of the troika, who say 'Great, you've done a lot', maybe gets debt
relief and a monetary agreement with the EU, then the markets may say 'That's
good' and it can raise 10 billion over the next year," the source said.
"It's a plausible financing scenario
but there are risks for a country with emerging market access," the source
added, referring to Greece's still low credit ratings.
RADICAL
LEFT AHEAD
For
Samaras, all this will have to happen before February or March next year when
he needs the support of 180 deputies in the 300-seat parliament to push through
his nominee for president.
He has only the support of 154 deputies from
his New Democracy party and Socialist PASOK coalition partner, but a bailout
exit could help lure some of the 24 independent lawmakers and perhaps even a
small anti-bailout party.
The radical leftist Syriza party, which has
71 seats in parliament and won the EU elections in May on an anti-austerity
platform, has pledged to block the government's candidate.
Failure to elect a new president would
require a general election, which Syriza would almost certainly win according
to opinion polls that give it a 2 to 6 percentage point lead.
"The government is now playing all its
cards in an effort to get the 180 deputies it needs ... to stay in power,"
said political analyst John Loulis. "But there is a sense of political
instability and a government that is wearing out."
(Source: reuters.com)
