Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is facing a tough battle to win support from coalition partners for a new three-year bailout offered by eurozone leaders.
The Greek parliament has until Wednesday to approve key creditor demands - including streamlining value-added taxes, broadening the tax base to increase revenue and curbing pension costs – just to start negotiations to access a new international bailout of up to 86 billion euros.
Attention is shifting to the parliamentary hurdles as leftwing rebels in the ruling Syriza party, and its junior coalition partner, the right-wing Independent Greeks (Anel) party, do not want to implement most of these measures because they go against their election promises of ending budget consolidation policies.
With two factions in his government already saying they won’t support the deal,cracks are emerging in Alexis Tsipras's coalition. The Greek premier met with his closest aides as he tries to stop the revolt from spreading before the Wednesday vote.
Changes are expected to come thick and fast in the next few days. Tsipras would “have to change his administration and clear out hardliners and radicals from his party,” as well as rely on opposition support to pass the necessary measures, said Eurasia Group analysts Mujtaba Rahman and Federico Santi.
The prime minister will have to reshuffle his cabinet and possibly form a new unity government later this week. While there is no real desire for opposition parties to participate in the a national unity government at present, they may press for the appointment of technocrats.
A meeting of the Syriza parliamentary group on Tuesday morning could see Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis and Deputy Labor Minister Dimistris Stratoulis sacked over their opposition to the bailout.
Nikos Hountis, a Syriza legislator and deputy foreign minister, resigned on Monday, the first leftist lawmaker to do so since the Brussels agreement was announced, though he appears to have done so as a career move rather than as an ideological protest. He is expected to replace Manolis Glezos, a Syriza lawmaker in the European Parliament who resigned last month, as he was a runner-up to Mr. Glezos in last year’s European elections. (Mr. Hountis himself will be replaced by the journalist Giorgos Kyritsis in Parliament so that Syriza will not lose a seat.)