Greece’s parliament just voted on the government’s presidential candidate, and didn’t get the super-majority it needed. Snap elections are now expected to be announced immediately, with the potential for fresh chaos. This was the third and final round of voting by Greek politicians: The government need a super-majority to avoid the sudden elections. That meant it needed 180 of 300 MPs to approve Stavros Dimas, the candidate. The governing coalition has 155 MPs, and it persuaded another 13 to back Dimas in the last round. It needed another 12 today and it didn't a single extra one. Stocks were down by more than 7% as voting began, and are down by more than 11% in Athens as of 10.35 a.m. GMT, with far-left Syriza likely to win a snap election. Since the presidential vote was announced in the first week of December, the Athens Stock Exchange has tumbled by nearly a quarter. Syriza isn't likely to be able to form a government on its own, but the highly unorthodox programme it promotes suggests rolling back many of the reforms in recent years and scrapping bailout agreements with Greece's international lenders. It could be the first instance of a eurozone government which simply refuses to co-operate with the currency union's institutions. Greece's banks, which Syriza has suggested it will nationalise, are getting hit hardest in the stock sell-off. Piraeus Bank and Alpha Bank, two of the country's largest, are down more than 14%.Join the conversation about this story »
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