The government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has accused parliamentary speaker Zoe Constantopoulou of "behaving like a dictator" after she branded the early election procedure "undemocratic and unconstitutional."
Tsipras resigned on Thursday, going on the offensive to defend the tough terms he accepted in the 86-billion-euro (USD 96 billion) rescue package which had triggered a rebellion in his radical-left Syriza party.
The mutiny scuppered his parliamentary majority and last week 25 of the rebels broke away to form a rival anti-bailout group called Popular Unity.
Under the constitution, Pavlopoulos was obliged to invite the largest opposition parties to try and form a government before formally setting a date for elections.
Also Read
The conservative New Democracy party was on Friday given a three-day exploratory mandate, but Tsipras today turned down a meeting with their leader Vangelis Meimarakis.
The procedure has no chance of success, as neither New Democracy nor Popular Unity can muster enough lawmakers for a parliamentary majority in the 300-seat chamber.
"There is no possibility of forming a government under the present parliament," the government said in a note.
But Constantopoulou, Greece's youngest parliament speaker at 38, has accused the 65-year-old president of breaking the rules by skipping a parliamentary technicality in order to hasten the procedure.
The president, an esteemed professor of constitutional law had yesterday responded by dismissing her arguments as "legally baseless".
Constantopoulou, whose father was a former head of Syriza's precursor party Synaspismos -- and was a Greek presidential candidate a decade ago vehemently opposed the third EU bailout Tsipras signed on July 13 and repeatedly sought to frustrate its ratification through stalling tactics.