The incumbent Greek President’s term ends in March 2015. Replacement of President Karlos Papoulis is the responsibility of the Greek parliament and requires the support of 180 MPs from a total of 300 lawmakers. The current government of Prime Minister Anonis Samaras has 155 seats and so he needs the support of 25 opposition MPs. Under the constitution, the government would have to call a general election if it was unable to get support for its presidential nominee after three votes had been held. The government has announced that the process of electing a new president will start on 17/12/14 which means that if support is not forthcoming, a general election may be called for January.

After years of austerity, the Greek people may well give their support to the left-wing Syriza party which is implacably opposed to further austerity measures which have been a condition of IMF/EU financial support which the nation was forced to call on when it became frozen out of the money markets by prohibitively high borrowing costs. This was a result from the revelation that Greece had fudged its economic figures when joining the Euro and misrepresented its debt. Without IMF/EU support, Greece would have been forced into a sovereign default.

News of the decision to press ahead with the presidential election led to a 6.6% fall on the Athens stock exchange and a hike of 40 basis points on Greek 10 year bond yields to 7.64%.

Greece will be granted a two-month extension of its bailout terms since a review cannot now be completed this year. Greece had hoped to formally exit the bailout by the end of the year, but would have to agree a line of credit in the interim. The ECB/IMF/EC troika needs to clear the disbursement of a final tranche of €7billion under the existing bailout agreements. The process has been complicated because the troika is dubious about Greek budgetary projections for 2015 and are believed to want Greece to agree on further austerity measures.