Greece Fails to Gather Support to Elect New President

Greece moved a step closer to early elections after Prime Minister Antonis Samaras failed to gather enough support for his nominee in a parliamentary vote for a new head of state.

In voting in Athens yesterday, 160 lawmakers in Greece’s 300-seat chamber backed Samaras’s candidate for the presidency, Stavros Dimas, short of the 200 votes required in the first of three attempts this month. Samaras has 155 lawmakers in his governing coalition and failure to rally enough support for Dimas will lead to the dissolution of parliament.