Greece is facing a snap election after MPs failed to elect a new president in a tight parliamentary ballot. The ruling coalition's preferred choice for the post, the former European Commission Stavros Dimas, fell short of the 180 vote majority needed to become president. In a third and final round of voting, Dimas scored 168 votes, the same result he achieved in the 2nd round. The coalition needed the support of smaller parties and independents, but the ruling coalition failed to get the numbers despite weeks of campaigning and lobbying. Meetings had been held over the weekend with some independent MPs, but media reports had already cited coalition sources as saying achieving the target would be difficult. Ruling party officials had also denied some reports that the government had been in talks with lawmakers from the right-wing Golden Dawn party, which is under investigation by the police. Dimas was quoted as saying that under no circumstances would he accept to be elected president with votes from Golden Dawn. Under Greek law, a snap election must now be called, leaving the country in a state of political uncertainty for weeks. An election is expected within the next month. This is dangerous for the Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and his conservative centre-left coalition. Recent polls indicate the ruling coalition trails the left-wing Syriza party which wants to renegotiate Greece's international bailout and roll back controversial austerity measures. One recent opinion poll over the weekend put Syriza ahead of Samaras' New Democracy party by 3.3 points. The markets have been jittery over fears the EU and IMF bailout could be derailed by Syriza coming to power. Greek Prime minister #Samaras says he will call early elections on January 25 (AFP) #ekloges2015 #PtD http://pic.twitter.com/8V10SHQGx6- euronews (@euronews) December 29, 2014 Greece set for snap general election after failing to elect president: Greece is heading for early... http://t.co/Kl7BM98Ykh #tech #news- The_News_DIVA (@The_News_DIVA) December 29, 2014 Greece heads to early elections, faces political uncertainty after presidential vote fails: http://t.co/zdcLHs1dFp- The Associated Press (@AP) December 29, 2014



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Greece faces snap election after MPs fail to elect a new president

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