MOSCOW, August 21. /TASS/. The resignation of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is a tactical maneuver as a result of which he hopes to strengthen his positions in power, a senior Russian lawmaker from the upper house of parliament said while commenting on the Greek premier's statement on its voluntary resignation.
"This resignation in no way shows that Tsipras is abandoning his claims for power, on the contrary it is a tactical maneuver to strengthen his positions in power," said Konstantin Kosachyov, the head of the Federation Council’s international affairs committee.
Kosachyov said that in current difficult times for Greece Tsipras "critically needs his own majority in parliament that he could rely upon, and which he currently does not have or it is fragile."
He said Tsipras’ calculation that early parliamentary elections on September 20 will strengthen the positions of the Syriza party has grounds.
"The population supports his policy to bargain with the European Union to the bitter end for maximally beneficial for Greece terms to overcome the crisis and to yield only when no other variants are left," Kosachyov said.
"My forecast is that even after September 20, Syriza will be Greece’s ruling party, the party of majority," he said.
Tsipras said Thursday his cabinet was resigning.
As he addressed the electorate over the national television, he said he felt a moral duty and an obligation to bring all the results of the government's activities to public assessment, considering that now the complicated stage of talks with the country's creditors was over.
Tsipras said he was going to hand in resignation to the president right after the address. This would open the doors to a snap parliamentary election where the voters would decide on who should lead the country to a complex but hopeful future.
He said the creditors would have imposed their will on Greece had the people not shown its resolve. But the difficult stage was over with the final ratification of the credit agreement and the payment of the first tranche.
Tsipras admitted along with it the government had failed to reach an agreement with the creditors, which it had hoped to reach before the January parliamentary election.
Greek mass media said the snap election might be scheduled for September 20.
Earlier, Tsipras held a range of meetings with government members and Syriza functionaries to discuss the problem of the early elections.
The government does not have a majority in parliament - 151 seats out of the total 300 - and it relies on the support of less than 120 deputies of the ruling parties, which is believed to be a psychological minimum.
A cabinet can put laws through parliament only if it rallies support from opposition parties.