New Democracy leader
Evangelos Meimarakis
will seek an alliance with his main leftist rivals first if he wins
this month's election, insisting that the country must not miss the
"last chance" to pull itself out of a seven-year crisis, Reuters
reported.
In an interview with Reuters, the 61-year-old political
veteran said his New Democracy party would turn to other pro-European
groups if Syriza - the leftist party that led Greece for seven turbulent
months this year - rejected his advances.
Syriza forced the
election last month when its leader Alexis Tsipras resigned as prime
minister, hoping to end a party rebellion over Greece's new bailout deal
and return to power with an outright parliamentary majority.
But
New Democracy, which lost power only in January, has surprised everyone
with the strength of its campaign. Opinion polls put it neck-and-neck
with Syriza, meaning the election on September 20 is unlikely to produce
an outright winner. A coalition government will therefore have to be
cobbled together to ensure Greece is not forced into a disruptive new
round of elections.
"The first party that I would turn to would be
the one that ranked second," said Meimarakis, who became interim New
Democracy leader in July after former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras
resigned.
"If the second party does not want to join in, I will
turn to the parties which believe in the country's European course and
with which we can at least agree on a plan of a viable government,
hopefully a four-year term one."
Meimarakis was referring to
Syriza, which in negotiating the 86 billion euro bailout with the
eurozone and IMF was forced to ditch its election promises to end
austerity.
The polls suggest the election will be a largely
two-horse race, meaning that if New Democracy wins, Syriza is almost
certain to be the second party in the next parliament. Support for each
party fluctuates around the 25 percent level.
Greece needs a
stable government to implement its side of the bailout deal to keep the
country from lurching back towards bankruptcy and an exit from the euro,
as it did this summer.
However, Syriza has so far spurned
overtures from New Democracy, calling it part of an establishment
responsible for the economic malaise. Tsipras says he is still hoping
for an outright victory and a mandate to implement the austerity
policies demanded by the creditors which have split his party.
Other
pro-euro parties Meimarakis could turn to include the Socialist PASOK
and centrist To Potami. The right-wing Independent Greeks' party -
Tsipras's former coalition ally - however, has suggested it would prefer
to team up with Syriza again.
Since sliding into crisis in
2008-2009, Greece has held four parliamentary elections and had seven
governments. In 2012 it held two elections in successive months to break
a political deadlock.
But a repeat election this time would
plunge the country into political instability, said Meimarakis, a former
speaker of parliament.
"This is the country's last chance," he
said. "I am mature. I'm ready, with a plan, with the party's top brass
and a united parliamentary group, to pull the country out of the
crisis."
Meimarakis accused Tsipras of scaring away investors
during his brief time in power, when the banks were closed for three
weeks, capital controls were imposed and several privatization deals
stalled.
Greece should unblock big infrastructure projects halted
under the last government and sign up to more investment. "Our first aim
is to restore confidence in the country," he said.
Meimarakis
said that even if New Democracy won outright, it would cooperate with
other political forces to form a negotiating team for dealing with the
European Union and International Monetary Fund lenders.
"We need
to coordinate and reach an agreement. And even if some political forces
don't want to take part in the government, there will be a national
negotiating team in which they should. It's their democratic obligation
to participate," he said.
Syriza has promised to implement the
bailout but also negotiate open issues such collective pay bargaining
and pension reform. It has also pledged to seek debt relief.
Asked
whether he would renegotiate parts of the bailout, Meimarakis said
Greece had to make significant progress, meet its fiscal targets to
regain its foreign lenders' trust and push for measures to mitigate the
impact of economic adjustment.
A New Democracy-led government, he said, would try to ease taxation and seek a restructuring of its debt.
"Our
partners do not want to strangle us," Meimarakis said, adding that he
was confident the lenders would be ready to discuss measures to ease
hardship if Greece met its side of the bargain.
On a sweeping
pension reform plan that Greece has promised to present by the end of
the year, Meimarakis said not much could be done since Syriza had
already agreed to the cuts in payments for the retired.
"We can't
push a magic button on this issue and give promises which cannot be
fulfilled and will be proven fake," he said. "The next two years will be
difficult."
Reuters
