Greece’s prime minister has resigned — after only seven months in office

Seven months ago Greece had a new prime minister. Alexis Tsipras promised to overturn austerity and move Greece out of the troubled waters that it was in.

But on Thursday, in a televised address to the Greek people, Tsipras said he felt “a moral obligation to place this deal in front of the people, to allow them to judge … both what I have achieved, and my mistakes.”

Yannis Palaiologos, a reporter with the Kathimerini newspaper in Athens, says he wasn’t surprised by Tsipras’s resignation.

“It was pretty clear since he came to an agreement with the Europeans in mid-July that a significant part of his parliamentary group was not willing to go along with that,” he says.

Palaiologos says that a third of the parliamentary party refused to back Tsipras when it came to the actual bailout vote. But, he adds, Tsipras has been arguing that he did his utmost and that he has been "fighting the good fight" for the Greek people.

Rebels from Tsipras's ruling party, Syriza, have announced that they will be forming their own party called Popular Unity, which will be led by the former energy minister, Panagiotis Lafazanis.

A new round of election has been set for September 20th.

Palaiologos predicts a comeback for Tsipras.

"I think Syriza, under his leadership, will come in first. He's going to be less promiscuous in his promises this time around," he says.

The political shake up in Greece hasn't gone unnoticed by the European countries who just this week agreed to a new bailout for the country.

German chancellor Angela Merkel, who was on a trip to Brazil, said that Tsipras's announcement of an election was part of the solution not the problem.

"It's clear that they had given a heads up and it seems that they [Europeans] are supporting him in this," Palaiologos says.

While he says there is plenty of reasons to be pessimistic about the next few months, Palaiologos says he remains positive. That's because, he says, it's the first time since the crisis began, that there isn't a major party contesting the logic of the bailout.

The only remaining issue is for the new government to actually implement the bailout once it begins to function.