MPs prepare to vote amid rumours of Lafazanis resignation

Panagiotis Lafazanis,  leader of Syriza’s Coalition of the Radical Left and currently Greece’s Minister of Productive Reconstruction, Energy and Environment, is rumoured to have offered his resignation to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras today after failing to sign the Greek government’s latest bailout proposal that was submitted to its creditors at midnight.
“Greece seeks to reach an agreement with the institutions immediately, but we want an agreement that will respect the country and the people’s dignity, and that will open windows for a way out of the crisis. We do not want to add a third Memorandum of harsh austerity, suffering and deprivation to the two previous ones without offering a prospect to the country,” he said at an energy congress last night.
Greek MPs are meanwhile scheduled to vote later today on whether to back  Tsipras’s tough new proposals to secure a third bailout. The proposals are aimed at staving off financial collapse and preventing a possible exit from the eurozone.
Eurozone finance ministers will examine the new proposals, which include pension cuts and tax rises, ahead of a full EU summit on Sunday. Correspondents say Mr Tsipras’s new plan contains many elements rejected in a referendum last Sunday.
Although Lafaznis’s words and the rumour of his resignation indicate the  opposition that Tsipras  is likely to face from the left wing of his coalition, Syriza spokesman Nikos Filis, said that the prime minister remained confident that parliament would give the government the mandate to negotiate the new bailout package.
The coalition government has 162 seats in the 300-strong parliament and also has the backing of many opposition MPs.