November 12, 2011
It took several days of back-and-forth talks, missed deadlines and public and private outrage, but Greece finally has a new prime minister. On November 10th Lucas Papademos, a former vice-president of the European Central Bank, was named to replace George Papandreou, who had pledged to stand down four days earlier. The decision meant Greece had come full circle in less than a working week: on November 7th Mr Papademos had looked like a shoo-in for the job before negotiations went sour.
It may have taken a while to reach, but the choice at least looks sensible. Mr Papademos, an academic economist and a member of no political party, has the reputation to reassure Greece’s bail-out partners, and his financial expertise should prove useful when it comes to implementing the complexities of the looming 50% haircut private holders of Greece’s bonds must suffer, under a deal struck in Brussels on October 26th.
The last casualty of this week’s wrangling was Philippos Petsalnikos, the speaker of parliament. A German-speaker skilled at keeping Greek lawmakers in order, he looked like a dead certainty to replace Mr Papandreou on the afternoon of November 9th. Mr Papandreou even delivered an emotional valedictory television address to the nation (although he did not name Mr Petsalnikos as his successor). Yet later that day Mr Papandreou (pictured, above, with President Karolos Papoulias) was forced to withdraw Mr Petsalnikos’s candidacy amid a threatened rebellion by backbenchers in his Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok). They blamed Mr Petsalnikos for helping Mr Papandreou put together his ill-fated proposal for a referendum on Greece’s new €130 billion ($178 billion) bail-out package. That plan had been shot down by euro-zone leaders at the G20 summit in Cannes, triggering Mr Papandreou’s decision on November 6th to step down (see Charlemagne).
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