SYRIZA

SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras may seek a meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu next month, his party suggested on Thursday.

Opposition leader Alexis Tsipras was open to a meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu who is scheduled to visit Athens on December 5 and 6, SYRIZA spokesman Panos Skourletis said on Thursday.

The Turkish premier is expected to join his Greek counterpart Antonis Samaras in co-chairing the third session of the Greek-Turkish High-Level Cooperation Council.

An investigation into a press report that businessmen were creating a fund to be used to bribe MPs to support the government’s presidential nominee in February has been shelved.

A prosecutor investigating reports that entrepreneurs close to the government were gathering money to bribe MPs into backing the coalition’s candidate for crucial presidential elections early next year deemed on Friday that there was inadequate evidence to substantiate such claims and shelved the probe.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras are due to hold separate meetings with Greek President Karolos Papoulias on Monday.

Tsipras is due to meet Papoulias in the early afternoon, while Samaras will go to the presidential mansion later in the day.

The government breezed through a confidence vote that took place after midnight on Friday as it gained the support of its own MPs but no other members of Parliament.

The final results saw 155 MPs back the coalition, two lawmakers vote "present" and 131 deputies vote against the government.

PASOK MP Dimitris Kremastinos on Friday became the latest lawmaker to call for a broad coalition government focused on negotiating the best possible deal with Greece's international creditors, telling Parliament that such an administration could be led by a mutually acceptable prime minister.

SYRIZA spokesman Panos Skourletis on Tuesday indicated that the leftist opposition might not propose a candidate for Greek president when Karolos Papoulias’s term expires in February instead of blocking the coalition government’s suggested candidate as the party has suggested it will do over the past few months.

Independent Greeks have thrown their weight behind SYRIZA's proposal for a referendum on privatizing part of Public Power Corporation (PPC).

In a statement Thursday, the country's right-wing anti-bailout party said leader Panos Kammenos had called leftist opposition leader Alexis Tsipras to declare his support for the move.

Democratic Left (DIMAR) suggested on Friday that the departure of its MP Vassilis Economou had been a long time coming.

“This closes a long period of troubled relations and clear divergences, which came exclusively as a result of [Economou’s] personal decisions,” said DIMAR after the former PASOK lawmaker announced he was quitting to become an independent.