Brussels, 04/09/2015 (Agence Europe) - The outgoing Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, appeared to make a U-turn on Thursday 3 September by saying he was prepared to form a coalition government with the Pasok socialist party. A few days earlier, he had ruled out any cooperation with New Democracy, Pasok or To Potami, which he said were incarnations of the old system in Greece.
In an interview on Kontra, Tsipras explained that there would be conditions attached to any alliance with Pasok. He said the former finance minister and former deputy prime minister under the Samaras government (Evangelos Venizelos and Andreas Loverdos) would not be allowed to be part of the coalition, and neither would any former ministers from the Papandreou or Samaras governments. After resigning in August, Tsipras asked voters to give him an absolute majority.
The latest polls showed that Syriza was losing ground to New Democracy. A Méga TV poll published on Wednesday put New Democracy in the lead with 25.3%, versus 25% for Syriza. Going by the poll results, the Greek Independents' party, Tsipras' current coalition ally, might lose all its seats in parliament. Opinion polls from Greece are taken with a pinch of salt by the eurozone as the scale of the no vote in the July referendum had not been predicted by any polls and anyway, 15% of those polled have not decided yet.
Before Tsipras, former Greek interior minister Nikos Voutsis refused to rule out a coalition with New Democracy and Pasok, saying: “There is no way we are going to go to further elections” (which would be the third this year).
The same analysis is made by the Open Europe thinktank. In an analysis, Open Europe codirector Raoul Ruparel says that although becoming more and more possible, new elections would be damaging to the Greek economy as that would mean longer capital controls, delaying the payment of the next batches of aid and considering easing the debt burden (and hence the IMF's involvement). Ruparel said the threat and complexity of moving in the direction of a new electoral process should be enough to force agreement on a new coalition government. Open Europe says that in the light of recent polls, it is possible that New Democracy will take the lead and form a new government with Pasok and To Potami. In the event of a Syriza victory, an absolute majority doesn't look possible, and the most likely coalition would be with Pasok and To Potami. To Potami has never formed part of a government.
In a speech in Alpbach, Austria, on Thursday 3 September, the head of Eurogroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, said: “Greece will require ownership and strong implementation of the programme and of course political stability, which is key.” (Elodie Lamer)