National elections could come as early as next year even though Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is doing all he can to avoid early elections by intervening in a number of issues to help sooth public frustration. The decision of scrapping the troika that supervises Greek reforms is in its early stages. On Wednesday, he announced a program – funded by EC funds from the National Strategic Reference Framework – worth 600 million euros to help boost employment.Fall is expected to be a difficult season, with Mr. Samaras hoping to hold onto the government at least until the election of the President in January 2015.

State Minister Dimitris Stamatis said that the government will not go to early elections prior to the presidential elections. Nonetheless, an angry exchange between the main opposition Coalition of the Left SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras and Mr. Stamatis prompted the former to insist that the government’s time in power is coming to an end. Leftist parliamentary factions believe that the coalition government might not be able to elect a successor to President Karolos Papoulias early next year, hence leading to early elections.

“We will take the maximum amount of time permitted and will abide by the Constitution an parliamentary rules,” said Mr. Stamatis. “The election of the next president will be decided here, in Parliament. We will go to a third round of voting if needed but hopefully we can convince you from the first round to save time.”