Οργιάζει τις τελευταίες ώρες το παρασκήνιο για την εκλογή προέδρου της Δημοκρατίας. Κάποιοι κάνουν ήδη λόγο για τη διάλυση ΑΝΕΛ και ΔΗΜΑΡ. Νωρίτερα ο Πάνος Καμμένος εμφανίστηκε στους «FT» λιγότερο βέβαιος για τη στάση των βουλευτών των Ανεξάρτητων Ελλήνων στην τρίτη ψηφοφορία για Πρόεδρο της Δημοκρατίας. Δεν είμαι βέβαιος για το αν όλοι οι βουλευτές των ΑΝ.ΕΛ, θα παραμείνουν πιστοί στη γραμμή του κόμματος (να μην ψηφίσουν δηλαδή Πρόεδρο της Δημοκρατίας), δηλώνει χαρακτηριστικά στους «Financial Times». «Είναι δύσκολο, δεδομένης της κατάστασης» συνεχίζει και προσθέτει ότι «πρέπει όμως όλοι μας να παραμείνουμε πιστοί στην αντι-μνημονιακή αποστολή που μας ανέθεσαν οι Έλληνες κατά την τελευταία εκλογική αναμέτρηση».
Εμφανίζεται ωστόσο βέβαιος ότι στην περίπτωση που γίνουν πρόωρες εκλογές το κόμμα του θα μπει στην Βουλή με ποσοστό 6-7% και έως 20 έδρες.
Το Κουρδιστό Πορτοκάλι επικοινώνησε με τον πρόεδρο των Ανεξαρτήτων Ελλήνων ο οποίος δήλωσε: «Ποτέ δεν μίλησα για τους Ανεξάρτητους Έλληνες στους Financila Times. Μίλησα για τους ανεξάρτητους βουλευτές και η φράση-τίτλος που μου αποδίδεται είναι προβοκάτσια από κύκλους της Νέας Δημοκρατίας».
Παρουσιάζουμε εδώ το ακριβές κείμενο των Financial Times για τον Πάνο Καμμένο και τους ΑΝΕΛ:
Independent Greeks leader says ‘we want elections’
There was a time when Panos Kammenos would have been a natural ally for Antonis Samaras, the country’s centre-right prime minister.
Mr Kammenos, once a rising star of Greek conservative politics, served as deputy shipping minister in a government backed by Mr Samaras’s New Democracy party.
But as Mr Samaras struggles to save his government in a presidential vote that begins on Wednesday, Mr Kammenos, who broke away from New Democracy in 2012, is vowing not to come to the rescue.
“The big problem with this government is that it takes orders from Mrs [German chancellor Angela] Merkel and doesn’t act like a sovereign state,” Mr Kammenos, who leads the Independent Greeks, a rightwing splinter group, told the Financial Times. “You can’t have the country where democracy was born being governed by email from Berlin.”
The Greek presidential election, which has shaken financial markets and threatens upheaval in the country’s politics, is now thrusting the Independent Greeks and a clutch of unaffiliated politicians and splinter parties into an unaccustomed spotlight.
To prevail, Mr Samaras must cobble together 180 votes for his party’s candidate, Stavros Dimas, by a third round of voting on December 29. Anything less than that and Greeks will go to the polls next month in a snap election which the far-left Syriza party is favourite to win.
Political analysts expect Mr Dimas, a former European commissioner, to garner 161 to 165 votes on Wednesday. Only half-a-dozen of 24 independents, mostly New Democracy defectors, are committed to backing the government. Others have shrugged off fears of renewed political turmoil and even a “Grexit” from the eurozone.
The Independent Greeks’ 12 MPs are being swamped with calls from political middlemen seeking to persuade them to break ranks and back the government. As backroom political talks around Athens heat up, the bidding is intensifying.
Mr Kammenos, an economist known for his aggressive style, has never been considered part of the tight-knit Greek political elite. He launched his party on Facebook and attacks New Democracy for supporting the country’s second international bailout and a perceived reluctance to investigate alleged corruption under former Socialist governments.
“We want elections, because the country needs to draft a new economic policy, including a debt restructuring, as soon as possible,” he said. “We foresee a coalition government that would exclude pro-bailout parties like New Democracy and the Socialists [the PanHellenic Socialist and Movement] that have failed to turn around the economy.”
Mr Samaras has based his appeal on a warning that electing Syriza, which has previously threatened to “tear up” the country’s international bailout, would amount to economic suicide. Yannis Stournaras, the central bank governor and Mr Samaras’s former finance minister, repeated the message on Monday, saying Greece risked “irreparable damage” to the economy as a result of prolonged political uncertainty, which threatens to reverse this year’s fragile recovery.
Mr Kammenos dismisses this as scaremongering, undertaken with the help of the European Commission. Even though he occupies the right of the Greek political spectrum, his own position on the country’s finances overlaps with Syriza. Like Alexis Tsipras, the Syriza leader, Mr Kammenos insists that Greece should negotiate a debt write-off with its EU partners “because we believe it’s impossible to pay off this huge amount of €340bn that we owe . . . It’s not sustainable, whatever we’re told by our partners.”
If all else fails, New Democracy officials hope that at least some of the Independent Greeks will be persuaded to switch sides by a more selfish concern: the need to save their seats, and generous parliamentary pensions, which would be at risk in an early election.
Two opinion polls this week suggested that Independent Greeks would fail to capture the 3 per cent of the vote needed to enter parliament, albeit by a narrow margin, if elections take place next month.
Mr Kammenos is confident that his party would return to parliament with about 6-7 per cent of the vote and up to 20 seats. Still, he sounds less certain that all his MPs will remain loyal in the final presidential vote.
“It’s difficult given this situation,” he said. “But we must all of us stick to the anti-austerity mandate the Greek people gave us at the last election.”
