FOUR years after a messy descent into emergency funding to stave off bankruptcy, Greece’s government is trying to pull the plug on a deeply unpopular bailout program to secure its own survival.

    Under growing pressure from anti-bailout leftists, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras desperately needs a new narrative to get the backing of lawmakers in a crucial presidential vote next year and rally Greeks fed up with four years of austerity.

    It is a gamble with high stakes for the Greek economy and Athens’ relations with its eurozone peers. Failure by Samaras to get his presidential nominee elected would trigger new polls that his anti-austerity rivals would almost certainly win.

    In Berlin last week, Samaras for the first time acknowledged that Athens hoped to wean itself off a 240-billion-euro (US$305-billion) EU/IMF aid package a year before its scheduled end in early 2016.

    He offered no details, but Athens is calculating that declaring an end to the reviled bailout could be just the political game-changer it needs, with the end of bailout funding from the European Union in December offering a logical moment to seal the exit of the International Monetary Fund as well.

    “It makes political sense, completely 100 percent,” a source familiar with the discussions said. “The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is not pushing to leave, the government is pushing for it.”

    Pulling this off, however, will almost certainly require Athens to notch up rapid-fire successes on several fronts — a swift end to its current bailout review, securing debt relief and the backing of European partners for going it alone.

    In addition, forgoing more than 12 billion euros in IMF loans and finding its own financing, just two years after a sovereign debt restructuring, remains a risky bet.(SD-Agencies)