The third and final round of voting of the Presidential Election began  at noon on Monday. For the third round, Mr. Dimas needed 180 MPs to back his candidacy in order to be voted in. In the second round, he fell short of this number by 12 votes. In the third round, Mr. Dimas only gathered 168 votes, 12 short of the number needed. According to Greek law, the country will now head towards early elections due to Mr. Dimas’ failure to gather 180 votes that were necessary for him to be President of Greece.

The coalition government’s hopes were dashed when Independent Greeks (ANEL) deputy Elena Koundoura, and independent MPs Vyron Polydoras, Petros Tatsopoulos, Mimis Androulakis, Nikos Tsoukalis and Nicky Founda voted present.

Within ten days, the announcement for national elections will be made. General elections will be called within a month, possibly late in January or early in February.

Opinion polls give a lead to the main opposition Radical Left SYRIZA party that has pledged to renegotiate the country’s bailout deal. This would put Greece on a collision course with its troika of international lenders from the European Commission (EC), European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF). Though the left-wing SYRIZA party has pledged to renegotiate the country’s bailout deal it vowed to keep Greece in the eurozone.

Though the polls play SYRIZA ahead it isn’t unclear if the party would get a majority.