Greek Leftists Rule Out Coalition With Incumbents
By RACHEL DONADIO and NIKI KITSANTONIS
Published: May 8, 2012
ATHENS — Greece’s post-election political and economic chaos deepened on Tuesday, when the leader of a leftist anti-austerity party that gained in the balloting ruled out a coalition with the two formerly dominant parties that had backed hugely unpopular budget cuts.
Pool photo by Kostas Tsironis
Greek President Karolos Papoulias, right, welcomed the leader of the Left Coalition party Alexis Tsipras in Athens on Tuesday.
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The announcement raised further doubts about the country’s future in the euro zone, as well as fears about the stability of the common currency itself.
In a meeting with President Karolos Papoulias, the leader of the leftist party, Alexis Tsipras, ridiculed the leaders of the two main parties whose coalition lost its majority in the parliamentary elections on Sunday, Antonis Samaras of the center-right New Democracy Party and Evangelos Venizelos of the Socialists.
No Greek party won enough seats on Sunday to form a majority on its own. New Democracy came closest, and got the first chance on Monday to try to assemble a coalition government, but Mr. Samaras announced within hours that he could not do so. With the second-largest share of seats, Mr. Tsipras and his party, the Coalition of the Radical Left, or Syriza, now has three days to try. If no party can assemble a majority, new elections must be called.
The strong anti-incumbent vote was widely seen as a cathartic denunciation by Greeks of their leaders for signing a bailout agreement that many regard as onerous. The deal with the European Union and International Monetary Fund promises years of austerity and deprivation while Greece pays down its enormous debts.
“If Mr. Samaras and Mr. Venizelos genuinely regret their disastrous decisions, let them write to the E.U. and I.M.F. leaders tomorrow, revoking their signatures,” Mr. Tsipras said. “If they don’t, I call on them to stop duping the Greek people,” he said, referring to appeals by the New Democracy and Socialist leaders for the formation of a national salvation government based on the terms of the bailout.
Later, Mr. Tsipras told reporters, “The popular verdict clearly renders the bailout deal null.”
His remarks appeared to assure that his party, would not form a coalition with New Democracy and the Socialists. Many analysts say Greece is unlikely to emerge from its current crisis with a government either able or willing to carry out the strict budget-cutting mandates of its foreign lenders.
The Greek election and ensuing political tumult showed that “it’s not clear how they can survive within the euro over the longer term,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard and a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. That could have grave implications for the rest of Europe.
“A Greek exit,” Mr. Rogoff said, “would underscore that there’s no realistic long-term plan for Europe, and it would lead to a chaotic endgame for the rest of the euro zone.”
Mr. Tsipras claimed that Greeks had not voted in anger in Sunday’s elections. “It was a mature and conscious decision,” he said, noting that the chief victory of the elections, in his view, was that the two main parties were no longer in a position to impose austerity measures on the Greek people.
He said he would seek to form a leftist-led government that would be based on five principles — the abolition of the debt deal, the abolition of laws overruling collective labor contracts, the introduction of changes to the political system (including greater accountability for members of Parliament), the introduction of state inspections of the banking system and the imposition of a moratorium on Greece’s debt repayments. “Based on these axes, we seek dialogue,” he said.
Mr. Venizelos, the Socialist leader, said on Tuesday that his party was open to joining a coalition “with only one precondition — to ensure Greece does not exit the euro zone and the E.U.” But Mr. Samaras of New Democracy said it was clear from Mr. Tsipras’s stance that he had no intention of forming such a government.
The political uncertainty injects a new element of unpredictability into the euro zone crisis, possibly casting Greece’s loan agreement with its foreign creditors into doubt, with a requirement pending to cut $15 billion from the budget in June. With the likelihood that a fiercely anti-austerity crowd will dominate the next Greek Parliament, some investors think it is only a matter of time before the country reneges on the promises it made of deep spending cuts and higher taxes to secure the bailout.
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This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: May 8, 2012
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misattributed a quote. It was the leader of an upstart leftist party, Alexis Tsipras – not President Karolos Papoulias — who said: “If Mr. Samaras and Mr. Venizelos genuinely regret their disastrous decisions, let them write to the E.U. and I.M.F. leaders tomorrow, revoking their signatures. If they don’t, I call on them to stop duping the Greek people.”
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