Greece faces snap election after MPs fail to elect a new president
On Monday Dec 29,2014, Greek MPs rejected the presidential candidate nominated by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in the 3rd and final round of voting, triggering the snap election.
Stavrov Dimas, a former European commissioner, secured the votes of only 168 MPs, the same number he had won during the second vote last week.
Alexis Tsipras, leader of the left-wing Syriza party, said Monday was an "historic day for Greek democracy"
Prime Minister Samaras warned that the country could easily "relapse" into the "most dramatic crisis"
Greece's Prime Minister Antonis Samaras (C), Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos (L) and Finance Minister Gikas Hardouvelis attend a cabinet meeting following the last round of a presidential vote in Athens December 29, 2014
The Athens stock market fell 7% on Monday as news of the vote sank in, with bank shares among the worst affected.
Investors sold off Greek government bonds, pushing bond yields above 9%. The government's borrowing costs on 10-year bonds rose to 9.7%, in a reminder of the 2010 crisis when 10-year bonds soared above 11%.
Opinion polls point to a victory by the radical leftist Syriza party, which wants to wipe out a big part of the national debt, and cancel the austerity terms of a 240-billion euro (187 billion pounds) bailout from the European Union and International Monetary Fund that Greece still needs to pay its bills
If Syriza is elected, it would be the first time an anti-bailout party determined to overturn the austerity approach prescribed since the start of the Euro-Zone crisis comes to power in Europe.
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