Government officials said Greece will call a snap election for May 6th today, launching a campaign that may produce no clear results and risk implementation of the bailout plan that saved Athens from bankruptcy.
The election will be the first since the debt crisis exploded at the end of 2009, dragging the country into its worst economic recession since the second World War, pushing unemployment to record highs and shaking the euro.
The conservative New Democracy and the Socialist Pasok, which back the interim government of technocrat Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, have suffered in opinion polls for supporting the bailout plan and may not gather enough votes to rule.
Polls show small parties opposing the steep wage and pension cuts imposed by the EU and the IMF in return for aid are gaining ground and may stop the leading parties from even forming a coalition government.
Mr Papademos is set to ask Greek President Karolos Papoulias to call the snap general election and dissolve parliament at a meeting scheduled for this afternoon, government officials said.
"They will meet to set the election date," a minister said on condition of anonymity. "We are expecting parliament to be dissolved."
Another government official confirmed the meeting would decide the snap election and said: "The date of the election will be May 6."
Officials have been saying for days that voters would go to the polls on the first Sunday of May, after Mr Papademos's emergency government completed its mandate by clinching a new EU/IMF rescue deal and a landmark debt restructuring.
Party leaders have already unofficially started the campaign, with conservative leader Antonis Samaras, whose conservatives are ahead in all opinion polls, telling supporters over the weekend that he would boost low pensions and create jobs.
Recent opinion polls show his party would gather between 18 and 25 per cent of the vote, ahead of Pasok's 11-16 per cent but far behind the socialists' sweeping 43.9 per cent win in the pre-crisis election in October 2009.
Mr Samaras has said repeatedly, however, that he is aiming for a full majority and has warned that he might trigger a repeat election if he does not get enough votes.
Reuters