Outside the Beltway

Greece To Hold New Elections

Doug Mataconis · Tuesday, May 15, 2012 · 2 comments

Not surprisingly, the final efforts to form a workable coalition government in Greece have failed:

ATHENS—Greece is heading to new elections after political party leaders failed to reach an agreement to form a coalition government following an inconclusive election May 6 that left the cash-strapped country deeply divided and put its fate in the euro zone in doubt.

A statement from President Karolos Papoulias said that talks had failed to reach consensus.

The meeting with the heads of Greece’s five largest political parties—the conservative New Democracy, Socialist Pasok, Democratic Left, leftist Syriza and nationalist Independent Greeks—was a last-ditch effort to reach an agreement after more than a week of talks had failed to break the political deadlock.

“We are going again towards elections, in a few days, under very bad conditions,” Pasok leader Evangelos Venizelos said after the cross-party meeting ended.

Mr. Papoulias said a meeting will be held Wednesday at 10 a.m. GMT to discuss forming a caretaker government ahead of the next elections, which are expected to take place by mid-June.

Under Greece’s constitution, the party leaders will have to agree on a caretaker government to lead the country to fresh elections. If they can’t agree on a caretaker prime minister, the president must appoint the chief justice of Greece’s Supreme Administrative Court, the Supreme Court or the Court of Audits to lead the country to elections.

After a week of failure, this was entirely predictable. The question is whether another round of elections is going to make it any easier to find consensus, and how the markets will react if it doesn’t.