Senior judge, Ioannis Sarmas, was sworn in as Greece’s caretaker Prime Minister on Thursday, ahead of the country’s new national elections to be held in about a month.
According to Ekathimerini, Sarmas was sworn in at the Presidential Mansion in the presence of Greece’s President Katerina Sakellaropoulou.
Sarmas will head a 16-member caretaker government, in which a former Greek ambassador to the United States, Vassilios Kaskarelis, will be Foreign Minister. The key finance ministry will be headed by economist Theodore Pelagidis, deputy governor of Greece’s central bank.
The senior judge is taking over from center-right Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections on May 21 but was unable to form a majority government.
The leaders of the top three political parties in Greece – Mitsotakis, SYRIZA’s Alexis Tsipras, and PASOK’s Nikos Androulakis – all turned down the exploratory mandates to form a government.
New elections will be held, with June 25 seen as the likeliest date, under a different electoral system which gives the first party up to 50 extra seats in Parliament. Mitsotakis hopes that vote will secure him a governing majority.
READ MORE: Here’s how Greeks in Australia voted during Greece’s national elections.
Source: Ekathimerini and AP News.
