The Greek government told members of parliament today to back a deeply unpopular EU/IMF rescue tomorrow or send the nation down "an unknown, dangerous path" to default and international economic isolation.
Conservative leader Antonis Samaras, who has attacked austerity policies for driving Greece ever deeper into recession, told his party to back the €130 billion deal or be dropped as candidates in the next general election.
With voters deeply hostile to the bailout's tough conditions, former socialist prime minister George Papandreou admitted that backing austerity had cost him the premiership and even some of his friends, but the alternative was a collapse in living standards and further "unforeseeable consequences".
The coalition of prime minister Lucas Papademos has a huge majority, which should ensure parliament approves a package tomorrow that includes a further €3.3 billion in budget cuts this year, needed to secure Greece's second bailout since 2010.
But six members of his cabinet have already resigned over the heavy pay, pension and job cuts which the European Union and International Monetary Fund are demanding as the price of the funds, which Greece needs by next month to avoid bankruptcy.
Officials hammered home the message that Greece's future in the euro was at stake."The consequences of disorderly default would be incalculable for the country - not just for the economy ... it will lead us onto an unknown, dangerous path," deputy finance minister Filippos Sachinidis said.
In an interview with the newspaper Imerisia, he described the catastrophe he believes Greece would suffer if it failed to meet debt repayments of €14.5 billion due on March 20.
"Let's just ask ourselves what it would mean for the country to lose its banking system, to be cut off from imports of raw materials, pharmaceuticals, fuel, basic foodstuffs and technology," he said.
Late yesterday, the cabinet approved the draft bailout bill and a plan to ease the state's huge debt burden which has deepened the nation's political and social crisis and brought thousands out on the streets in protest.
As a 48-hour protest strike went into its second day, about 50 Communist party activists draped two huge banners on the ramparts of the Acropolis on Saturday, reading: "Down with the dictatorship of the monopolies (and the) European Union".
Members of the conservative New Democracy party, which has a big lead in opinion polls before elections expected as early as April, are likely to back the deal solidly. Mr Samaras still warned his party, the second biggest in parliament, against stepping out of line.
"This is obviously an issue of party discipline," he told New Democracy representatives in parliament, warning anyone who opposed the bailout "will not be a candidate in the next election".
However, the smallest party in the coalition, the far-right Laos, resigned from the government in protest at the package yesterday, ordering its four cabinet members to resign.
Two members of the Socialist Pasok party have also left the cabinet.
Mr Papandreou, who negotiated the first bailout before his government collapsed in November, acknowledged the huge pressure on any politician backing the second rescue."I've lost friends, my family suffered, I gave up my office, I was insulted, vilified, like no other politician ever was in this country," he told Pasok's parliamentary group.
"Still, all that is nothing compared with what our people will suffer if we fail to do the right thing... Despite all the anger we are feeling inside, we must persevere."Party discipline is much weaker at Pasok, whose support has dived to eight percent in the latest opinion from the nearly 44 per cent it commanded when Mr Papandreou led it into power in 2009.
Despite the whiff of rebellion, analysts expect parliament to pass the package, which also includes a bond swap which will ease Greece's debt burden by cutting the value of private investors' bond holdings by 70 per cent.
Some economists suggest that if Greece defaulted and left the euro zone, its new national currency would dive in value and allow the Greek economy to become internationally competitive.
But government spokesman Pantelis Kapsis dismissed this notion. "We'll have to reduce the deficit, regardless of whether we have the euro or not.
"Euro zone finance ministers have told Greece that it must explain how €325 million out of this year's total budget cuts will be achieved before it agrees to bailout.
Bailout documents released yesterday left blank the amount of the rescue but even €130 billion may not be enough.
Finance minister Evangelos Venizelos said today that €15 billion more might be needed to rescue the country's banks, confirming estimates from EU officials.The banks are up to their necks in Greek government debt, the value of which will be slashed under the bailout, and have suffered huge losses of deposits as Greeks have either shipped their savings abroad or stuffed them under the mattress.
The European Union and the IMF have been exasperated by a series of broken promises and weeks of disagreement over the bailout. They will not release the aid without clear commitments by the main party leaders that the reforms will be implemented, regardless of who wins the next elections.