Papandreou wins confidence vote

Greek PM wins vote of confidence on promise he step down.

By REUTERS
Greek parliament 311 (photo credit: REuters)
Greek parliament 311
(photo credit: REuters)
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has won a late night vote of confidence staving off disastrous political turmoil, for now, and preventing further inflammation of the euro zone economic crisis.
Papandreou won 153 of the 300 member parliament votes, thanks in part, to a promise he step down from his post and form a new coalition government.
Opposition lawmakers are adamant he leave before engaging in any joint discussions.
Evangelos Andonaros, a member of the main opposition party, said, "Mr Papandreou may have won the vote of confidence tonight in parliament but what he did once more is using one of his usual tricks: he is trying to stick to power at any cost without taking the consideration, the interest of the party. He may pretending that he is willing to share power with other parties but actually the only thing he is interested about is to keep his own power at any cost. There can be no discussion with a socialist party before Mr. Papandreou has resigned his post as Prime Minister."
Earlier in the week Papandreou called for a referendum on the 130-billion euro bailout plan approved by the EU just days before saying he needed wider political support.
But the move was seen as careless with many lawmakers and analysts at home and abroad fearing that a rejection of the plan could have had devastating consequences for other EU countries looking for bailouts.
In the end, Papandreou called off the referendum and asked for a vote of confidence instead.