Syriza

Ahead of Monday’s third critical presidential vote, government officials were canvassing MPs over the holidays in a last-ditch bid to garner additional support for the coalition’s candidate, former European Commissioner Stavros Dimas, and to avert snap elections.

Coalition leaders Antonis Samaras and Evangelos Venizelos have been busy over the holiday period in a bid to win over lawmakers in Greece's 300-seat Parliament to vote for their presidential candidate in the third and final ballot on December 29.

German 10-year yields were about three basis points from a record low on Tuesday, outperforming higher-yielding peers, as Greece’s failure to elect a president boosted the anti-austerity opposition’s chances of ousting the government.

Greek MPs failed on Dec. 23 to elect a president in a second vote in parliament, bringing an early general election, feared by financial markets and the country's EU-IMF creditors, a step closer.
      
The government candidate, EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas, fell 32 votes short of the required 200 votes, meaning a third and final vote will be held on December 29.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras appeared confident the coalition government will muster the 180 votes in the third round needed to elect its presidential candidate and avert snap elections, after 168 lawmakers in the 300-seat House backed the former European Commissioner Stavros Dimas for the post in the second round of a parliamentary ballot on Tuesday, showing an increase from the 160 ballots

Lawmakers in Greece are to make on Tuesday a second attempt at electing the country's new President.

The legislature in Athens failed to elect a head of state on December 17, since the only presidential candidate Stavros Dimas, the nominee of government partners from New Democracy and PASOK, was backed by only 160 MPs, with at least 200 (a two-thirds majority) needed for the step.

Greece’s main opposition party has committed a serious institutional blunder in suggesting that any MPs breaking from party lines in the ongoing presidential vote are essentially “apostates.”

With all political parties now actively preparing for the prospect of snap elections, MPs are to vote in the second ballot of a critical three-phase presidential vote at noon on Tuesday.

Greece’s five-year bonds rose on Monday after a poll on Sunday showed that the lead of the anti-austerity SYRIZA party had narrowed before the second round of a presidential vote on Tuesday.

The Greek five-year note yield fell 30 basis points to 8.53 percent.

The country’s 10-year rate declined 13 basis points to 8.30 percent.

The threat of a bomb being planted at SYRIZA’s headquarters in central Athens proved to be a hoax.

The party’s offices on Koumoundourou Square were evacuated at lunchtime on Monday after a caller claimed a bomb had been placed there. Police searched the building but failed to find anything.