WSJ: Greek government wins a confidence vote

16 November 2011

Greece's new government comfortably survived a vote of confidence on Wednesday, but interim Prime Minister, Lucas Papademos, has to move quickly to shore up the country's deteriorating finances to qualify for European aid.

The vote, which the government won 255 to 38, caps an almost two-week long political crisis in Athens that has rocked European markets and raised fresh doubts over Greece's future inside the eurozone. The new government had been expected to carry the vote with the support of Greece's two major parties—the majority Socialists and the opposition New Democracy party—who hold a combined 237 seats in the country's 300 member parliament. The small, nationalist Laos party, which has joined the two big parties in forming the coalition government, controls an additional 16 seats.

Despite the deep divisions among Greece's political establishment, the vote was the easy part. Mr Papademos takes the helm of an economy that, all signs show, is heading deeper into recession than both the Greek government and its international creditors, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, forecast only a few weeks ago.

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