Leftist Leader in Greece Rules Out Coalition With Incumbents - New York Times

ATHENS â€" Greece’s post-election political and economic chaos deepened Tuesday, when the leader of a leftist anti-austerity party that gained in the balloting ruled out a coalition with the two traditionally dominant parties that were abandoned by voters after backing hugely unpopular budget cuts required to avert a Greek default. The disarray raised further doubts about the country’s future in the euro zone, as well as fears about the stability of the common currency itself.

In a meeting with President Karolos Papoulias, the leader of the upstart party, Alexis Tsipras, ridiculed his counterparts of the two other parties, Antonis Samaris of the center-right New Democracy Party and Evangelos Venizelos of the Socialists, whose coalition lost its governing majority in the Sunday parliamentary election.

None of the Greek parties won enough votes Sunday to form a majority. But Mr. Tsiprias, whose Coalition of the Radical Left, or Syriza, won the second-largest percentage of votes after New Democracy, is entitled under election laws to try to form a coalition because Mr. Samaris said on Monday that he could not. Mr. Tsiprias has three days to try.

The strong anti-incumbent vote was widely seen as a cathartic denunciation by Greeks of their leaders for signing what many regard as an onerous bailout deal with the European Union and International Monetary Fund that promises years of austerity and deprivation to help repay Greece’s enormous debts.

"If Mr. Samaras and Mr. Venizelos genuinely regret their disastrous decisions, let them write to the E.U. and I.M.F. leaders tomorrow, revoking their signatures," Mr. Papoulias said. “If they don’t, I call on them to stop duping the Greek people,” he said, referring to appeals by the New Democracy and Socialist leaders’ appeals for the formation of a national salvation government based on the terms of the bailout.

His remarks appeared to assure that his party, would not form a coalition with New Democracy and the Socialists. Many analysts say Greece is unlikely to emerge from its current crisis with a government either capable or willing to carry out the strict budget-cutting mandates of its foreign lenders.

The Greek election and ensuing political tumult showed that “it’s not clear how they can survive within the euro over the longer term,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard and a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. That could have grave implications for the rest of Europe.

“A Greek exit,” Mr. Rogoff said, “would underscore that there’s no realistic long-term plan for Europe, and it would lead to a chaotic endgame for the rest of the euro zone.”

Mr. Tsipras claimed that Greeks had not voted in anger in Sunday’s elections. “It was a mature and conscious decision," he said, noting that the chief victory of the elections, in his view, was that the two main parties were no longer in a position to impose austerity measures on the Greek people.

He said he would seek to form a leftist-led government that would be based on five principles â€" the abolition of the debt deal, the abolition of laws overruling collective labor contracts, the introduction of changes to the political system (including greater accountability for members of parliament, the introduction of state inspections of the banking system and the imposition of a moratorium on Greece’s debt repayments. “Based on these axes, we seek dialogue,” he said.

The political uncertainty injects a new element of unpredictability into the euro zone crisis, possibly casting Greece’s loan agreement with its foreign creditors into doubt, with a requirement pending to cut $15 billion from the budget in June. With the likelihood that a fiercely anti-austerity crowd will dominate the next Greek Parliament, some investors think it is only a matter of time before the country reneges on the promises it made of deep spending cuts and higher taxes to secure the bailout.

Liz Alderman contributed reporting from Paris.