Leader of leftwing opposition Syriza party accuses government of being under foreign control
Greece's conservative-socialist coalition government has survived a no-confidence motion, following a heated three-day parliamentary debate.
The motion, tabled by the radical leftwing opposition Syriza party, fell well short of the 151 votes needed to pass, with 124 lawmakers voting in favour and 153 against.
"Thousands of people are looking in the rubbish for food," the Syriza leader, Alexis Tsipras, said, as the motion was debated in parliament.
Syriza was supported by the Communist party, the rightwing populist Independent Greeks and the extreme right Golden Dawn. Democratic Left, a coalition partner for a year until June, voted "present". One socialist lawmaker voted in favour of the motion and was promptly expelled from her party's parliamentary group.
Although the motion of no confidence had limited chances of passing, Syriza used the debate to lambast the government over its policies, claiming it was taxing the poor to protect the rich.
"You chose the wrong moment to play parliamentary theatrics, in a time when the government is in crucial negotiations with the troika," the prime minister, Antonis Samaras, told the Syriza leader in parliament. A delegation from the troika of Greece's creditors, including the European commission and the International Monetary Fund, is in Athens assessing the economic climate before distributing a further €5.9bn (£4.9bn) in loans.
The no-confidence motion was tabled on Thursday, a few hours after Greek riot police ended a nearly five-month protest by sacked workers broadcasting from what was once the headquarters of the defunct ERT state broadcaster, removing a few dozen people occupying the complex.
The government, under pressure from Greece's international creditors to reform the public sector, decided to close ERT in June – a move heavily criticised by most opposition parties and the Democratic Left, which used the issue as an occasion to leave the coalition. The government has since set up a new, leaner broadcaster, with one channel in place of the previous three.
Greece has been surviving on international rescue loans from the IMF and other European countries since 2010. Successive governments have passed rounds of deep spending cuts and tax rises to secure €240bn in bailout loans. Greece has predicted it will emerge from its six-year recession next year.
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