May 6th date set for crucial Greek general election

ENDING WEEKS of speculation, Greece’s prime minister yesterday confirmed May 6th as the date for the country’s next general election, a contest that is likely to become a referendum on Greece’s bailout and a means for voters to exact revenge for austerity.

Lucas Papademos, a technocrat whose appointment in November was originally scheduled to last until February, formally made the announcement in a televised address, after requesting the country’s president to dissolve the parliament.

He had earlier praised the ministers of his centre-left Pasok/centre-right New Democracy coalition, telling them that the coalition government had left an “important legacy”.

“In these five months we showed that we can co-operate, combine positions when necessary, and put our differences aside to make decisions for the good of the country,” he told a cabinet meeting.

With only 25 days left to polling day, the campaign will be officially one of the shortest in many years and will be squeezed even further by the fact that Easter, the biggest feast in the Greek Orthodox calendar, is celebrated this weekend in Greece.

Campaigning had already begun in earnest before yesterday’s announcement, as an April 29th or May 6th election date had been in play for weeks.

On Monday, the two main parties angered the public when they voted to award themselves €29 million in state funding in advance to help finance their election campaign.

While Mr Papademos was still in his meeting with the president, the leader of the socialist Pasok party, which won a landslide victory in the last general election but is now facing a Fianna Fáil-style bruising at the polls, told his MPs they needed to re-establish a link with voters.

Pasok leader Evangelos Venizelos added that his party would take a stand against populism and parties that offered no feasible alternative to the EU-IMF loan agreements.

“There is no democracy without politics. Criticism is one thing, and trampling on public institutions and fascist-like behaviour are another,” he said, referring to numerous attacks on politicians by the public in recent months.

In an attempt to break with the past, Evangelos Venizelos said that over half of those running for his party would be fresh candidates.

But to the surprise of many, former Pasok prime minister George Papandreou will be on the party ticket.

The new parliament is expected to convene on May 17th, but commentators said that it could take weeks to form a government from the eight or nine parties – including a neo-Nazi group – that a flurry of recent polls have said are likely to be returned to the 300-seat parliament.

None is likely to secure an overall majority, the polls say, despite the fact that, under current electoral law, the winning party will receive an additional 50 seats.

A poll published just after Mr Papademos’s announcement showed that the gap between centre-right New Democracy (19 per cent) and Pasok (14.5 per cent) had narrowed.

The Public Issue/Kathimerini poll survey put the combined support for anti-memorandum parties at 55 per cent, most of that (36 per cent) polled by three left-wing parties and the rest by three right-wing parties.

In recent statements, New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras said his goal was a one-party government, and ruled out a post-election extension of the coalition with Pasok.

“If a majority government is not formed, then the circumstances would demand new elections,” he said in a televised interview on Monday.

One of the first tasks of the new government will be to implement €11 billion of budget cuts over the next two years.