ATHENS: Greece’s president met party leaders yesterday in a final bid to cobble together a coalition and avert a repeat election, but the talks immediately hit an impasse and looked set to fail because of deep splits over an EU/IMF rescue plan.
Leaders of the three biggest parties, each of whom had failed to form a government in the past week, convened at the presidential mansion, where President Karolos Papoulias had a last opportunity to implore them to form a coalition before he must call another election, probably in mid-June.
The meeting broke up after less than two hours of talks, and leaders said the discussions had hit a snag, though they expressed the hope that difficulties could be overcome.
“Even now, despite the impasse at the meeting we had with the president, I hold on to some limited optimism that a government can be formed,” said Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos, whose PASOK party finished a humbling third in Sunday’s election. But he warned time was running out.
“The moment of truth has come. We either form a government or we go to elections.” His conservative counterpart, Antonis Samaras, said talks to form a government were continuing but blamed the radical leftist SYRIZA party for blocking efforts to form a coalition.
Samaras placed first in the election last week but fell far short of an outright majority, punished by voters for backing a bailout package tied to harsh austerity cuts in the heavily indebted country.
SYRIZA, which campaigned against the bailout, finished a surprise second in the vote.
Both Samaras’s New Democracy and Venizelos’ PASOK party - which have taken turns to rule Greece for nearly four decades and jointly negotiated a bailout that requires deep cuts in public spending - are eager to avoid facing the voters again.
Polls since the election show the balance of power tipping even further toward opponents of the bailout, who were divided among several small parties but now appear to be rallying behind SYRIZA’s Alexis Tsipras, a 37-year-old ex-Communist student leader.
Greek leaders hit impasse in push to avert elections
