Deutsche Welle
Greece's president and religious leaders have sworn in the
country's new prime minister. The leader of the conservative party,
Antonis Samaras, will lead a coalition government in the troubled
country.
The leader of the New Democracy party in Greece was sworn in as prime
minister at the presidential palace in Athens on Wednesday. Antonis
Samaras spoke briefly to President Karolos Papoulias and Orthodox
priests before signing a document confirming that he would lead
parliament in Athens.
"With God's help we will do everything we can to take the country out
of the crisis," Samaras told reporters shortly after the ceremony.
The center-right New Democracy party will rule in coalition with the
Socialist PASOK group and the smaller Democratic Left party.
The coalition will exclude the second-placed party from last Sunday's
election, the far-left SYRIZA group - which has shot to prominence as a
result of the economic chaos in Greece.
Samaras, a 61-year-old former foreign minister, campaigned on a
platform of keeping Greece in the European single currency, the euro.
The new prime minister had said, however, that he would seek to
renegotiate the terms of the international loan packages - often called
bailouts - granted to Greece by its European partners and the
International Monetary Fund.
The biting austerity measures tied to the emergency loans are unpopular
with the Greek electorate. Pay cuts, tax increases and reductions in
public services are among the pre-conditions for the tranches of
international assistance. Greece is in its fifth consecutive year of
recession.
Samaras was sworn in as prime minister just hours after it was
announced that he had managed to form a viable coalition government.
It's not yet clear what shape that coalition will take. Greece's
elections this past Sunday took place after the country's leading
politicians failed to set up a viable coalition when the country voted
in May.
msh/sej (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)
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