Greek Prime Minister Tsipras Requests President to Dissolve Parl't, Set Early Election for 7 July

Last month, Greece announced that it would hold snap general elections on 7 July after Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called for the move after his leftist Syriza Party suffered an overwhelming defeat in the European Parliament elections.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras asked President Prokopios Pavlopoulos on Monday to dissolve parliament and set an early election for 7 July. 

The prime minister also said he wanted to receive "the people's mandate."

Tsipras justified his request by the fact that the ruling party SYRIZA suffered a resounding 9.3 percentage point defeat to opposition centre-right New Democracy party in last month's European Parliament.

President Pavlopoulos, in turn, accepted the prime minister’s demand; therefore, a presidential decree is expected to be issued soon, according to Greek Reporter.

The meeting between Tsipras and Pavlopoulos was broadcast live on Greek public television ERT.

This comes after in May, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said that he intended to hold early national parliamentary elections following the defeat of his Syriza Party in the European Parliament elections. 

Tsipras vowed to request "the president to immediately call for national elections" after the second round of regional elections held on 2 June.