Tsipras picks up baton after Samaras fails to form unity government

Page last updated at 15:26 GMT, Monday, May 7, 2012 - 20:26 EST

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The leader of the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), Alexis Tsipras, is to get a shot at forming a coalition government from Tuesday after an attempt by Antonis Samaras, the leader of conservative of New Democracy which came first in the general elections, failed to bear fruit.

Tsipras is to meet President Karolos Papoulias at 2 p.m. to receive his mandate to form a government. He will then approach other parties - formations “primarily” to the left of the political spectrum, he indicated yesterday - in a bid to form a left-led coalition. Party sources told Kathimerini that Tsipras’s key goal is to win round the Communist Party (KKE) and Democratic Left, a moderate, pro-Europe grouping. If this fails - which is likely as KKE has already ruled out any cooperations - Tsipras will reach out to other parties, the same sources said. He is also expected to meet with the heads of smaller leftist parties that didn’t make it into Parliament in a bid to bolster SYRIZA ahead of a possible second round of elections.

Samaras effectively passed the baton to the 38-year-old leftist on Monday when he declared that his efforts to form a government had failed. “We did everything we could, but it just wasn’t possible,” Samaras said in a televised statement.

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