Coalition negotiations continue in Greece despite leftists’ refusal

PanARMENIAN.Net - The conservative New Democracy party, the frontrunner in weekend parliamentary elections, said it will continue efforts to form a broad coalition government, despite receiving a rejection from the second place leftist SYRIZA party on Monday, June 18, DPA reported.

New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras met SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras shortly after receiving the mandate for forming a coalition from President Karolos Papoulias. Samaras said Greece needed to be governed “immediately.” Mr. Tsipras rejected the possibility of joining a coalition, insisting that his party will remain in opposition from where it can combat the austerity measures lenders are demanding from Athens.

The SYRIZA leader told Samaras not to waste time in forming a broad coalition government and to make good on his pledge to renegotiate the bailout agreement, saying that cutting salaries and pensions further would be “disastrous for the country.” Mr. Samaras said he would seek to involve as many parties as possible to “try to form a long-term national unity government,” after failing to win enough seats in parliament to govern alone.

Mr. Samaras is scheduled to meet Socialist PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos at 1500 GMT.

New Democracy won 29.6 per cent of the vote and 129 seats in the 300-seat parliament on Sunday, but is still 22 seats short of forming a majority government.

The conservatives will have three days to strike a deal. If they fail the mandate passes to SYRIZA, which wants to cancel the country’s bailout commitments.

But SYRIZA has said that, if Samaras fails to form a government, the leftists would not take up the mandate. It would thus pass on automatically to third-place PASOK.

As a last resort, Mr. Papoulias would be responsible for leading coalition negotiations between party leaders. Final results gave SYRIZA 26.89 per cent of the vote and 71 seats. Pro-bailout PASOK gained 12.3 per cent of the vote and 33 seats.

New Democracy, as the winner of the most votes, gained an additional 50 seats, in accordance with Greek electoral law.