Back to the polls for Greeks as party talks founder

GREEKS WILL return to the polls to vote in a fresh general election next month after their political leaders failed yesterday to strike an agreement to provide the country with a government.

Nine days after an election that overturned the Greek political landscape, leaders attending a make-or-break meeting chaired by the country’s president, Karolos Papoulias, refused to budge from established positions that made the creation of a cabinet impossible.

The main sticking point in the talks was the insistence by Pasok, New Democracy and the Democratic Left that the Radical Left Coalition (Syriza), which became the second party on May 6th, be part of any coalition government.

However, Syriza, which is likely to emerge as the leading party after the new elections, insisted it could not support a government that would honour the country’s bailout agreements with the troika.

The party will meet again today to set up a caretaker administration to lead the country to new elections, possibly on June 17th.

Mr Papoulias is expected to use his constitutional powers to appoint the chief of one of the country’s top three courts to serve as interim prime minister.

Yesterday’s meeting was attended by five of the parliament’s seven political leaders. The orthodox Communist Party refused to attend, while no invitation was extended to the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party.

In individual televised statements given after the meeting broke up, party leaders blamed opponents for the impasse and set down the agenda of their new election campaigns.

“These upcoming elections will be a struggle between the left-leaning forces of nihilism in league with opportunistic populists,” said New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras, in an attack on Syriza and the Independent Greeks, an anti-memorandum splinter from his own party.

“On the other side will be a European front, strong and determined,” he continued, in comments that avoided any reference to erstwhile arch enemy Pasok, now a potential ally.

In his reaction, Alexis Tsipras said Syriza missed out on becoming first party by “a few thousand votes”, which prevented it from fulfilling its programme of creating “a left-wing government that would cancel bailout austerity and rebuild the country out of the ruins left behind by the pro-bailout parties”.

He added that Mr Samaras and Pasok’s Evangelos Venizelos “personally remained true to their commitments to [German chancellor Angela] Merkel and [IMF chief Christine] Lagarde and refused to accept our proposals”.

“All they did in these past eight-plus days was to present us with a dilemma: the bailout or elections.”

In comments directed at opponents to the left of his Pasok party, Mr Venizelos blamed the fresh elections on “certain people [who] put short-term party interests above the good of the country”.

“The voters will now see what is real and what is false,” he added.

The first opinion polls of the new campaign are expected in a couple of days. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the head of one polling company said initial data showed Syriza continuing its upward surge, the Independent Greeks party losing support and Pasok’s support stabilising.