Leader of conservative Nea Dimocratia, Antonis Samaras, returns the mandate to form a coalition government after meeting with three political leaders proved fruitless.
“There is no common ground,” Samaras told reporters after he concluded the meetings with potential government partners, just five hours after he was appointed.
Samaras said that he called the president to brief him that he would return the mandate.
Short after he was appointed by president Papoulias to lead exploratory talks on Monday afternoon Samaras had consequent meetings with Tsipras/SYRIZA, Venizelos/PASOK and KouvelisDemocratic Left.
Samaras is expected to officially return the mandate this evening or tomorrow Tuesday.
After that the President will appoint Alexis Tsipras with the mandate to form a government.
Alexis Tsipras will meet the President at 02:00 pm on Tuesday.
Should Greeks head for repeat elections?
PS From what I hear from PASOK officials, they say, they do not definitely want to take minister posts in the new government.
All parties are determined, or “in favored of”, to stay in EU and the Euro Zone, right?
all parties? these four parties…
What happens if no one gets a majority? Do all the seats earned by the current election go away and they have to get the same percentage again to keep them.
So, for example if the Pasok get more votes next election in June in a few weeks, can they get more seats in teh parliament too?
once there are elections, the seats cards are mixed anew.
No one gives a shit about this.
All we want to know: Is Greece going to shitcan the Euro?
Nothing else matters.
for us here , we give a full bag of it to know who will govern us
Ask Angela Merkel, Dave. The attack on austerity is bigger than Greece, with Hollande now elected in France. It’s a question of how deep Gernman pockets are and how far they will reach into them before saying enough.
BTW, re. ” giving a shit”. You speak for yourself only.
I fully agree!
Samaras had three days, but already gave up after the first one? Wtf? Looks like he didn’t take that task seriously. Especially since it certainly takes at least 24 hours for the parties and their leaders to get accustomed to the new situation and analyze the available options now. Samaras should have negotiated until the very last minute!
Well, maybe this is political powerplay to show Tsipras he can’t get the votes together for a government without ND. That’s probably true, since the undemocratic 50 seat bonus for the strongest party prevents a coalition of Syriza, Pasok, Democratic Left and the Independent Greeks from reaching a majority in parliament, despite their 46% share of the vote dwarving the meager 34% of ND + Pasok. To find a commmon program for these rather different parties would have been very difficult anyway, but under the electoral math the endeavour is useless.
So, Samaras may want to score a cheap point by showing the voters that the young upstart Tsipras has no chance to build a government without ND. Needless to say, such political stunts to please the vanity of a party leader are exactly what Greece doesn’t need now. Sigh.
if Samaras cannot negotiate with local coalition partners, how will he manage to re-negotiate MoU with the tough guys of IMF? I see too with suspeicion ND/PASOK apparent willingness to support Tsipras in a minority gov with DemLeft.
Yeah, that Samaras gave up after a mere 24 hours, apparently (if the report at AthensNews is correct) without even talking to the Independent Greeks, and still pretends he “did everything [he] could”, shows that he isn’t man enough to lead Greece through these hard times. Regardless which secret plan he may be pursuing – if the Greek voters aren’t totally braindead, they have to be aware now that this jerk is a very bad choice for prime minister. Hopefully, this will ultimately lead to changes in party leadership! For everybody plain to see, the old two party system is an ugly trainwreck, and it will take new, fresh ideas to create a better democratic environment out of the rubble. Greece has to reinvent itself. That’s the only way out of the mess now!
Samaras invited Indep Greeks, but Kammenos rejected the offer.
Samaras had another two days to apply public pressure on Kamenos (just look at his attack on Tsipras in the media now!). And even if he can’t convince the party leader, fact is he only needed three additional representatives to get a majority. Two days to convince three conservatives of the Independent Greeks, former ND members, but Samaras simply gave up after not even a whole day’s work? Excuse me pls, but to me this doesn’t look as if the guy seriously tried.
I bet he hadn’t overcome the schock of his low elections flight. with 108+5 he wouldn’t have the majority
108 seats of ND, plus 41 of Pasok (why shouldn’t Samaras be able to get his old coalition partner into the boat?) means that only two (not three, sorry) representatives are missing for a majority. It certainly should be possible to find those somewhere, especially in the Greek political landscape (where moving from one party to another isn’t totally unheard of). Under these circumstances, a really determined party leader wouldn’t have given up after a mere five hours, I’m very sure.
after their historic defeat 0f -30%, Venizelos rejected a ND/PASOK coalition. They seek a place to hide, reconstruct and come back. Then they got the voters’ message. IF again with ND at the next elections PASOK could get even less than 5% or risk to be outside the palriament.
Great coverage of events, KTG. Many thanks from me in the UK.
thanks for reading 🙂
I thought it was only 36 hours they gets to form a government i heard on greek tv.
wrong. 3 days for each of the 3 parties.
In some countries it takes almost a week to come up with a (in)formateur. Then it is nice to see the speed of Greek politicians.
Seriously though: I agree completely with Gray that giving back this task within a couple of hours does show a total lack of commitment to the faith of Greece and it’s people and disqualifies Samaras and his advisers once and for all from leading this country in this hour of need.
He is just taking his stand, doesn’t move one inch and then he thinks that he can turn like a leaf when Tsipras and Venizelos don’t succeed and go totally in the other direction and say that he always had that position and that everybody who is denying that is lying and so on… *sigh*
Well, lets remember that Samaras talked about his desire to win a one party majority for ND all the time during the campaign. Now this increasingly looks like this wasn’t simply deliberate optimism, to inspire confidence among party supporters, maybe, but that he really isn’t interested in leading a government coalition at all. If that’s true, this totally disqualifies him as a prime minister in this difficult situation. The big problem is, the 108 member block of ND plus the seats of the extremists effectively prevent any other government coalition. What now?
New elections, but first scrap that law?
not that easy – I try to post on the issue but need more time to write about (grrr)
Samaras “I did my best for a coalition government” – 15 min with Tsipras, 15 min with Venizelos = Fast Track Worst