Summary The government has said its priority is to secure a start to funding from international creditors.
ATHENS (Reuters) - The Greek government appears likely to call a confidence vote, following a rebellion among lawmakers from the ruling Syriza party over the country s new bailout deal, senior ministers said on Monday.
Energy Minister Panos Skourletis described such a parliamentary vote as "self-evident" following Friday s rebellion when almost a third of Syriza deputies abstained or voted against the agreement.
With Syriza s left wing showing little sign of returning to the party fold, Skourletis also raised the possibility of early elections should Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras lose a confidence motion. Tsipras had to rely on opposition support to get the bailout deal through parliament, and another minister argued that elections would be a way of achieving political stability.
Greece s political turmoil has raised uncertainty over how the government will implement the bailout deal, which demands profound economic reform and tough austerity policies, without a workable majority.
The government has said its priority is to secure a start to funding from international creditors under the bailout program, Greece s third in five years, so that Athens can make a 3.2 billion euro debt repayment to the European Central Bank on Thursday.
However, asked on Skai television about the possibility of a parliamentary confidence vote after this, Skourletis said: "I consider it self-evident after the deep wound in Syriza s parliamentary group for there to be such a move."
Tsipras was elected only in January, but since then has had to ditch his promises to reverse the budget cuts and tax increases that previous governments imposed to satisfy Greece s euro zone and IMF creditors.
Health Minister Panagiotis Kouroublis suggested that only another election could calm the climate at a time of economic crisis and show that the people would accept the onerous bailout program.
"Elections are not the best choice ... but for the economy to pick up there must be political stability," he told Skai TV. "To implement such a serious program with painful measures, you cannot do that without a popular mandate."
