now let's go straight to athens where mark lowen joins us. >> things are moving very quickly here in athens. let me take you through the developments from this morning. a lot has happened. this morning, four ministers, including the finance minister, have expressed their dissatisfaction. they say they do not approve of the referendum plan. three governing party mpshave said they will not vote with the government in the confidence vote that will happen in the parliament video -- parliament building behind me. george papandreou has lost his majority in parliament. he now has 149 mps supporting him. he may need the support of some additional mp's. it's now looking increasingly unlikely that george papandreou will win the confidence vote. within the last few minutes, one of his mp's has called for a national unity government to be called involving two main parties to both through the bailout deal agreed upon in brussels last week. greece is in an intense period of political instability, all caused by this referendum. >> referendum then be taken off the table? is there the prospect that w

we can go to mark lowen in athens to see if we can get the latest. mark, who are the front-runners now, and what are the chances we're going to get an announcement today? >> well, david, last night it seemed that the former vice president of the european central bank was a shoo-in to be the next prime minister. we all thought he was on the verge of being named. now more uncertainty. the new name in the frame is the president of the european court of justice, former minister of the interior. there's really still a lot of uncertainty here, a lot of disagreement. we're getting some reports that the outgoing prime minister, george papandreou, will go and see the president shortly to inform him of progress on reaching a deal, perhaps announce that a deal has been reached. one newspaper headline here today saying sinking without a captain. one analyst this morning said greece has never known such uncertainty in its recent political history, a lame-dumb prime minister, a power vacuum here with a government unable to be formed. >> horrible sense of uncertaint

let's go over to our correspondent, mark lowen, in athens. new man at the helm, mark, of whom we don't know that much, do we? >> no, and that's possibly his advantage, because he is a new face around town. he's not tainted by the extremely low level of confidence that george papandreou inspired at the end of his premiership. so, i think greeks are really withholding judgment for the time being. they see him largely as a safe pair of hands. he has impressive credentials. former vice president of the european central bank. but he will face an enormous task here, because with the ratification of the bailout package will come more austerity measures and more cost-cutting. we all know what that means, more demonstrations, protests, and strikes here on the streets of athens. a winter of discontent awaits lucas papademos. he will face a baptism of fire after taking that oath of office later on this afternoon. >> ultimately, mark, all he can do in the first instance is mark sure that he complies with the bailout conditions from the eurozone countries.