A second Greek election is looking more and more likely, with party leaders unable to form a coalition. I reported on Tuesday that Antonis Samaras — leader of the largest party, New Democracy — had admitted that he couldn’t put together a government and had passed on the mandate to Alexis Tsipras, leader of Syriza. Well, Tsipras also failed to build a coalition, as he couldn’t convince ND and centre-left Pasok to turn against their austerity plan, and so the baton has been passed to Pasok leader Evangelos Venizelos.
His hope was to convince Democratic Left — which holds 19 parliamentary seats — to join his and Samaras’s parties in a government that could continue Greece’s austerity programme and abide by the terms of its IMF bailout. But Democratic Left’s leader Fotis Kouvelis has squashed that hope, by saying that his party ‘will not take part in a government with New Democracy and Pasok’.
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