Political upheaval sharpens after bribe claims with threats and insinuations

Greek MPs are to vote Tuesday in the second ballot of a three-phase presidential election amid a growing political crisis that has been sharpened by the bribery allegations of Independent Greeks MP Pavlos Haikalis and a slew of threats and counter-threats in Parliament.

The government is still far from the 180 votes it needs for next week’s third and final presidential vote, making the prospect of snap polls increasingly likely.

There had been hopes that the vote Tuesday, when the minimum threshold for votes is 200, would give an indication of the government’s chances of garnering the 180 votes it needs in the final round. But the tensions that mounted over the weekend, amid suggestions of attempted bribery, made it clear that some lawmakers will go to the polls under extreme pressure. Independent MPs Spyros Lykoudis and Christos Aidonis said they would sue fellow independents Odysseas Voudouris and Theodoros Parastatidis after the latter two suggested that the stance of independent MPs who voted against next year’s budget but in favor of the president in the first round is suspicious. The move came after Prime Minister Antonis Samaras heralded legal action against the Independent Greeks over a video featuring Haikalis and an alleged middleman purportedly offering the MP a bribe to back the coalition’s presidential candidate, Stavros Dimas.

Members of Parliament’s ethics committee decided over the weekend not to view the video, deeming that it was an illegal product. However, the panel summoned Voudouris and Parastatidis who are Monday to explain their insinuations.

As Parliament pushed for a judicial probe, new information and claims complicated the affair over the weekend. Haikalis revealed that several months prior to the alleged attempt...