New round of elections, states Tsipras

“We believe that the electoral dilemma is the memorandum”, stated the president of SYRIZA, addressing the mandated PM Antonis Samaras, when the latter asked Alexis Tsipras to cooperate in a national salvation government in order for the country to remain in the Eurozone and amend the memorandum.

“The memorandum was defeated. You want to support it, so we cannot work together”, and thus Tsipras ended all talk of a government cooperation between ND and SYRIZA.

Given the negative response of SYRIZA, the consistent refusal of the Communist Party to enter a government and the rejection by Panos Kammenos, the possibility of cooperation with ND is now minimized.

This time, the only way to set up a government under Mr. Samaras is to form a coalition of ND-PASOK and Fotis Kouvelis' Democratic Left, so that the new government has the absolute majority of 151 MPs in the house.

Given Mr, Kouvelis' preliminary announcement that he will not become the Leftist excuse of a memorandum government, everything points to the notion that the exploratory government formation of Mr. Samaras will not succeed.

The ND chief is expected to return the exploratory mandate to the President on Monday night or no later than Tuesday morning.

An aversion in the statements of Mr. Tsipras who is expected to be given a mandate to form a government tomorrow, shows that the most likely scenario is to carry out new national elections.

“We appeal so that no new barbaric measures are taken until a new government is formed. Do not be tempted to create an artificial climate of extortion”, warned the SYRIZA president. Decoding the statement, it implicitly shows that the efforts to form a coalition government will not succeed. So this time it is at least as likely to raise the possibility of new elections in June.

“We cannot work through the window with the person the Greek people drove out the door”, stated Mr. Tsipras after his meeting with Mr. Samaras. “With this data, there can be no national salvation government since his signatures are not a salvation but a tragedy”, added the SYRIZA president, clarifying that “the programmatic positions of Mr. Samaras are the opposite to those of SYRIZA”.

Barring surprises, Mr. Tsipras is to be called tomorrow by the President to ive a mandate to form a government, as the leader of the second largest party.

In the three days during which the exploratory mandate is in effect under the Constitution, Mr. Tsipras will seek to persuade the parties of the left that entered the House to form a “leftist” government. The Communist Party’s refusal to get involved is a given, so the impasse and the deadlock and impossibility to form a coalition government is a matter of hours.

Secure information indicates that during the three days Mr. Tsipras will meet only with Aleka Papariga and Fotis Kouvelis, and only in the case that there is an agreement will the SYRIZA president will ask for a tolerance vote by Panos Kammenos. However the SYRIZA president is not seemingly willing to meet with the Independent Greeks president face to face. Associates of Mr. Tsipras clarify that there is no chance of meeting PASOK president Evangelos Venizelos while in fact, a new meeting with Mr. Samaras has no bearing since it failed the first time.

The crucial question is how SYRIZA will handle its political opponents’ charge that the party’s refusal to participate will lead to an unmanageable non-government. In this “blame game”, SYRIZA will insist on its decision to form a Leftist government and will promote Mr. Tsipras' view that citizens in yesterday’s elections downvoted the memorandum so he is not entitled to cooperate with the forces which committed to a policy that leads Greek people to misery.