Greece hurtles toward new elections

Source: Tanjug

ATHENS -- PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos has returned his mandate to Greek President Karolos Papoulias after he too failed to form a new government.

Evangelos Venizelos and Karolos Papoulias (Tanjug, file)

The parliamentary elections in Greece were held on May 6.
The last chance is to form the national unity government. The president should reach an agreement with leaders of all parties but if they fail to agree on it, Greece will face new parliamentary elections, probably in June, news agencies have reported.

New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras and SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras tried to form the government before Venizelos.

Tsipras said on Friday that he refused to take part in a government that would not give up on strict austerity measures.

PASOK and New Democracy leaders claim that Greece would be forced to leave eurozone if Tsipras’ conditions were met.

PASOK and New Democracy were ruling parties in the previous government but received significantly less votes in the May 6 elections. Greeks are angry over strict austerity measures implemented by the previous government and therefore gave their votes to parties that promised that they will not accept international conditions.

PASOK and New Democracy together have 149 seats in parliament and they lack only two to form the majority.