ATHENS — Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Greece called Thursday for new national elections in a bid to consolidate his power and press ahead with the 86 billion euro bailout plan he agreed to with European creditors.
Mr. Tsipras said in a nationally televised address that he would submit his resignation to Greece's president, clearing the way for a vote on whether he and his leftist Syriza party should be returned to power with a new mandate. Officials said he would seek to schedule the vote for Sept. 20.
"Now it will be to the people to decide," Mr. Tsipras said. "I feel the deep moral, political obligation to submit to your judgment. Your vote will determine if we represented you courageously in talks with the creditors, if this agreement is enough for us to emerge from the crisis."
For weeks, Mr. Tsipras has been weighing new elections, amid a deep split among factions in Syriza over his embrace of the bailout plan. Elected in January, Mr. Tsipras took office as an anti-austerity renegade, vowing to win a better debt deal for Greece. But after several tumultuous months, the prime minister reversed course and agreed to a new bailout program with the country's creditors: the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the other members of the eurozone.
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The deal infuriated Syriza's far-left factions and managed to pass through Parliament only with the help of opposition parties. Defections from Mr. Tsipras's coalition had raised the possibility that he would not have the necessary support to prevail in a potential parliamentary test of confidence in his leadership, a possibility he avoided by calling for new elections.
He now seems to be positioning himself as more of a centrist but still populist leader, intent on carrying out the terms of the bailout in a way that minimizes the harm to those at the lower end of the economic scale while battling entrenched interests.
Some analysts had thought Mr. Tsipras might postpone snap elections until October, after the country faces the first review of its progress in meeting the terms of the bailout. Under the deal, Greece on Thursday received billions of euros in new aid from other eurozone countries, which the government used to repay existing debt, including a payment due on Thursday to the European Central Bank.
Critics say that the new bailout deal is merely a continuation of an austerity program that has driven the Greek economy to record levels of unemployment and a drastic downturn in economic output. Most of the new money allows Greece to meet obligations on existing debt but does little to rebuild the shattered national economy.
Earlier, Greece missed debt payments to the International Monetary Fund before Mr. Tsipras struck the new bailout deal, raising the prospect that it might leave the eurozone. It has since paid the money with the help of a temporary loan from other eurozone countries.
Less clear is whether Mr. Tsipras's call for snap elections might further destabilize the Greek economy in the short term. Depositors have withdrawn about €40 billion from Greek banks since December, and officials had hoped the bailout deal, which includes money to recapitalize the banks, would serve as an assurance that the public could return money. Yields on Greek government bonds rose on Thursday, an indication that investors see more economic risk as the country heads into elections.
Politically, the most organized opposition within Syriza comes from Left Platform, a radical faction accounting for about a quarter of the party's members of Parliament. The leader is the former energy minister, Panagiotis Lafazanis, who argues that Syriza was not elected to impose further austerity and is calling for Greece to abandon the euro and return to its old currency, the drachma.
Several other Syriza lawmakers, including the Parliament speaker, Zoe Konstantopoulou, also object to the terms of the new bailout, which include strict spending limits, new tax increases and raise the retirement age, while also opening various parts of the Greek economy to greater competition.
In comments to reporters outside Parliament shortly before Mr. Tsipras's address, the former minister and Left Platform member Dimitris Stratoulis hinted at the formation of a new breakaway party. "The 'no' of the people to austerity will find political expression in these elections," he said, referring to last month's referendum result. "The forces of 'no' inside and outside Syriza will be united."
Mr. Tsipras is betting that Greek voters, weary of instability, will support him in a new vote and enable him to form a new government absent hard-line leftist dissenters. Despite his reversal on the bailout plan, Mr. Tsipras has remained highly popular, with the most recent polls in late July showing no other leader in a strong position to challenge him at this stage.
Some analysts wondered if Mr. Tsipras would try to form a new coalition with opposition parties in Parliament, including some that he has depicted as part of Greece's corrupted establishment. But with the new election, Mr. Tsipras can try to win a clear endorsement, even if he may still be forced to build a new coalition.
In calling for a new vote, Mr. Tsipras will again be testing his connection to ordinary Greeks. In early July, after months of tough negotiations with lenders, the prime minister unexpectedly called a referendum on the lenders' austerity proposals and asked voters to reject them with a "no"' vote.
But while he got his "no"' vote, Mr. Tsipras did not win better terms from creditors and only days later was forced to backtrack and agree on the new, tough bailout deal.
Early on Thursday, as rumors began to circulate that Mr. Tsipras would call for early elections, Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos, speaking in Parliament, said early elections would not lead to political instability and called on Greeks to return their savings to banks.
"Now there is an agreement, there is a course ahead," he said, referring to the latest bailout, which formally took effect on Thursday following approval on Wednesday by the German Parliament and European officials in Brussels.
Energy Minister Panos Skourletis said on state TV earlier in the day that elections were needed to deal with the split in Syriza. "The political landscape must be cleared up. We need to know whether the government has or doesn't have a majority."
An earlier version of a picture caption with this article misspelled the surnames of the Greek prime minister and president. The prime minister is Alexis Tsipras, not Tspiras, and the president is Prokopis Pavlopoulos, not Pavlopoulios.
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