By Paris Ayiomamitis

Former socialist prime minister Costas Simitis said this week that Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ decision to call early presidential elections was ‘a wise move’

“There is no other way to stability, we must have elections [for President of the Republic],” Costas Simitis told CNBC this week.

The elections were due in February this year, but Samaras took markets by surprise and decided to bring the date forward by two months, with the first round of voting scheduled on December 17.

The government’s move to is seen as a bid to end weeks of uncertainty with spreads on Greek bonds spiking and market confidence in Greece plummeting.

“If this was not done, there would be a situation of nobody knowing what will happen and of crisis—and crisis is not a good thing,” he said.

Simitis said the outcome of the election will be critical for Greece.

“If the present government has a majority again and the government wants to continue with the present policies with the European Union, I think the result will be very positive as far as the debt question is concerned.”

Hinting at the negative impact a government formed by main opposition Syriza could have, Simitis said: “But if a party is elected that does not accept the existing conditions and wants to change many points of the loan contracts and so on, then this will create more instability.”

Simitis served as prime minister from 1996 to 2004 and oversaw Greece’s entry to eurozone in 2001 with false data, as the government later admitted. But Simitis told CNBC that  “when a country enters the eurozone, it has to fulfill certain obligations,” and he insisted ‘Greece fulfilled the obligations that were necessary.’

Speaking at the London School of Economics (LSE) earlier in the week on the occasion of the publication of his book ‘The European debt crisis –The Greek case’, Simitis  echoed similar sentiments.

“The decision on the presidential election had to be taken to secure political stability”, he said, adding that if parliament cannot elect a president, it will bring “uncertainty and dangers on a political, economic and social level”, hinting that a government formed by the left wing, anti-bailout party, Syriza, could prove problematic.

He also warned of the perils involved with an exit from the eurozone.

“No country can leave the eurozone but, if that were to happen, it would cause it insurmountable problems.”

Samaras hopes his government’s candidate, Stavros Dimas, a former EU commissioner for the environment and a former Greek foreign minister, will get the backing of 180 MPs and thus avert a general election, which Syriza would most likely win, according to polls.

Greek law states that to elect a president, the vote of 180 mps is needed in the 300-seat parliament. If parliament cannot elect a president, the government must resign within ten days and elections are called. The coalition government’s majority in parliament currently stands at 155 Mps.

According to Ta Nea daily, Simitis said, on the sidelines of his book launch, that if parliament is unable to elect a president and elections are called it will plunge the country into turmoil.

Main opposition Syriza has said it will vote down any government nominee for president in order to force early national elections