On September 30, Greek prime minister Kostas Karamanlis, in line with his recently declared determination to no longer tolerate any inner-party criticism and defiance, fired a rebellious member of ruling New Democracy’s (ND) parliamentary group, thus hitting the absolute minimum of MPs needed to have a majority in the Greek parliament.

Stavros Dailakis was sacked following his continued public statements that some high-ranking figures surrounding Karamanlis needed to be dismissed, made in spite of the premier’s September 26 speech telling those who did not agree with his policies to go.

“The environment [around Karamanlis] is what is at fault,” Dailakis said, quoted by the Associated Press. “When you see that the yard needs weeding and cleaning, you must clean it up,” Dailakis said, requesting the dismissal of minister of state and government spokesperson Theodoros Roussopoulos and of the head of the prime minister’s political office Yiannis Angelou.

As Dailakis, who vowed to continue supporting ND, did not resign from parliament but became an independent MP, Karamanlis lost the chance to replace him and was simply left short of one vote in favour of ND’s acts in parliament.

With 151 deputies out of a total of 300 currently at hand and with a heap of problems to solve, chances that his cabinet will make it till the end of its term are getting slimmer by the day. And this given the government has been in office for only a year following its re-election.

Karamanlis, however, seems determined to keep up with the hard-line tone. Greek daily Kathimerini quoted sources as saying the prime minister had told his inner cabinet that even the threat of calling snap polls could not stop him from doing the same to any of his MPs who dared to continue discrediting the cabinet.

“Neither the country nor the government wants elections,” interior minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos was quoted by the daily as saying after the meeting. “But we are ready for every eventuality.”

Whether they are truly ready, however, is debatable. The turmoil that has been piling up in Greece in recent months started to take its toll in mid-September, when a number of public opinion surveys indicated the main opposition Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) party had taken the lead from the conservative ND for the first time in four years. The economic reforms – met by Greek citizens with mass strikes this year – the numerous corruption scandals involving the names of high-ranking officials, and most recently the conviction of a premier advisor, the resignation of a minister and a huge row about some dubious property transactions between the state and a monastery all made people turn away from the ruling party.

In an attempt to start winning back popular support, on September 26 Karamanlis delivered a ground-breaking speech during a meeting of ND’s central committee, in which he urged all those within his government who were critical of its decisions to leave and topple it, saying he was not to be blackmailed.

“I say ‘no’ to the constant dissection of this government, ‘no’ to its undermining,” he said, as quoted by Reuters. “To those who have other plans, face me head on: topple this government!”

The speech, however, obviously did not have a big impact on Karamanlis’ inner-government critics. And given the high level of tension in Greece’s ruling circles, the cabinet in Athens looked on the brink of cracking and falling.