Pasok MP quits as party leaders push for cuts vote
Thursday 01 November 2012
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EmailInternational creditors' hopes to force austerity on Greece took another hit today after a Socialist Party (Pasok) MP left the coalition government in disgust.
Michalis Kassis said quitting was his only option after Pasok leader Evangelos Venizelos told his MPs that anyone failing to vote for the €13.5 billion (£10.8bn) cuts package next week would be thrown out of the party.
Former health minister Mariliza Xenogiannakopoulou also announced she was quitting.
"A progressive, historic, and radical party has turned itself into a small department of the political centre-right, having adopted its neoliberal values and choices," she wrote in a letter to party leaders.
Senior coalition partner New Democracy and the smaller Democratic Left have already each lost an MP each to the cuts.
The losses mean the coalition now commands 175 seats in the 300-member parliament.
But Democratic Left's 16 MPs have pledged to vote against austerity and Mr Kassis said a number of Pasok MPs were planning to rebel.
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