PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos held a meeting this morning with leader of Nea Dimocratia Antonis Samaras. The meeting lasted half an hour the both leaders left without making statements.
Samaras and Venizelos are to meet with their parliamentary groups in the afternoon.
On the table is the proposal of Democratic Left for an ecumenical government with participation of all parties that entered the parliament after May-6 elections.
While there is much talk about a PASOK-ND-DEMLEFT formation, Kouvelis insists on a government with the participation of at least one more party, with SYRIZA.
Venizelos, who recieved the mandate by the President, is scheduled to meet SYRIZA-leader Alexis Tsipras at 7 pm.
KKE and INDEPENDENT GREEKS turned down Venizelos’ invitations to talk with him.
Theoretically, Venizelos has three days to form a government.
Practically he is expected to return the mandate tomorrow, should he fail.
According to Greek Constitution, President Karolos Papoulias will call on the political party leaders council and try to form a government even with the purpose to lead the country to fresh elections.
A question that arises is whether Papoulias will call also extreme-right Chrysi Avgi-leader Nikos Michaloliakos.
Article 37 of the Greek Constitution provides that the President call the politcal party leaders, it does not mention “all“. So far, Chrysi Avgi has been excluded from coalition government talks, although the party won 6.9% of the votes.
UPDATE:
01:20 pm
– DEM LEFT leader Fotis Kouvelis announced that he will not back a PASOK-ND-DEMLEFT government. He insisted on participation of more parties and/or SYRIZA at least.
Kouvelis came under pressure by at least 8 of his MPs not to join a solely PASOK-ND 3-party gov’. DEMLEFT has 19 seats at the parliament.
Theoretically, ND-PASOK-DEMLEFT would achieve a majority of 160 seats at the parliament even if 8 DEMLEFT MPs quit the party (and most likely run to SYRIZA). But should this government fail and fresh elections would be due, the political cost for Kouvelis would be immense.
– After the meeting with Venizelos, Antonis Samaras (ND) said that he would support a PASOK-ND-DEMLEFT-SYRIZA government even with a vote of tolerance. At the same time, he attacked SYRIZA…
Check occationally for updates – there is no reason for live-blogging today, I believe.
See more on government talks in KTG category Politics
PS My crystall ball still shows “fresh elections”
