Lafazanis declares new party’s goals to cancel bailout, write down debt

Addressing his new breakaway party Popular Unity, Panayiotis Lafazanis on Friday declared that the new movement would offer a "realistic, alternative to the memorandum," and said its key goals would be to cancel the memorandums and write down Greece's debt, adding that any euro exit would be "orderly."

"We will become a major and decisive political force," he said, adding that the grouping of 25 MPs "will try to express the spirit and substance of the 62 percent who voted no to austerity," referring to last month's referendum on austerity measures proposed by Greece's creditors.

"The 'no' of the referendum will not be an 'orphan' in these elections," Lafazanis told MPs and reporters in Parliament. 

He said the decision by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to call snap elections in the summer "does not portend good things" and suggested that the premier had tried to catch Greeks off guard. 

"If it is necessary for us to cancel the memorandum, we will follow the course of exiting the euro," Lafazanis said, adding that any exit would be "orderly."