Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has announced he is resigning and has called an early election.

Mr Tsipras, who was only elected in January, said he had a moral duty to go to the polls now a third bailout had been secured with European creditors.

The election date is yet to be set but earlier reports suggested 20 September.

Mr Tsipras will lead his leftist Syriza party into the polls, but he has faced a rebellion by some members angry at the bailout’s austerity measures.

He had to agree to painful state sector cuts, including far-reaching pension reforms, in exchange for the bailout – and keeping Greece in the eurozone.

A portion of Syriza has responded by splitting off into a new party:

Hardline rebels have confirmed an irreparable split in Greece’s ruling Syriza movement and broken away to form a new anti-austerity party as the country heads towards its fifth general election in six years.

The long-awaited move by up to 29 dissident Syriza MPs on Friday followed the resignation of the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, who stepped down on Thursday to pave the way for a snap poll widely forecast to strengthen his hold on power.

The new Popular Unity party, headed by the former energy minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, said it would fight the promises of further austerity and far-reaching reform that Tsipras made to Greece’s international lenders to secure a new €86bn (£62bn) bailout package.

Lafazanis told a press conference the party would offer a realistic alternative to the deal. He said: “A new power is coming to the fore. We aim for government … and we will not fall victim to blackmail. We want to become a great movement that will sweep the bailouts aside.”

The veteran former Communist party member listed Popular Unity’s key objectives as cancelling Greece’s three bailouts, writing down its mountain of debt and leaving the eurozone “if necessary” to help the country recover.

This is significant, because we will now have a non-fascist party in the election that saying that there are worse things than leaving the Euro zone.

I don’t think that the Greek populace is willing to leave the Euro ……… yet, but Euro skeptic parties appear to be on the upswing.

When there is no politically alternative to a poorly conceived, and insanely managed common currency, those feelings have to go somewhere.

Now that Merkel, who said that Tsipras resigning was, “Part of the solution, not of the problem,” it’s clear that the replacement of social democratic parties with the, “We don’t suck quite as much,” policies of Tony Blair and their ilk has left a large political vacuum.

I just hope that Fascist parties don’t fill this vacuum, but I fear that they will.