Greece Election Inconclusive, No Deal On Government: Report

Reuters  | 05/15/2012

From left to right, leader of the Democratic Left party Fotis Kouvelis, head of the Socialist PASOK party Evangelos Venizelos, leader of Conservatives New Democracy party Antonis Samaras, Greek President Karolos Papoulias, leader of the Coalition of the Radical Left party Alexis Tsipras and leader of the 'Independent Greeks', Panos Kammenos during a Political party leaders meeting at the Presidential Palace in Athens, on Tuesday, May 15, 2012. (AP Photo/Aris Messinis, pool)

By Lefteris Papadimas and Dina Kyriakidou

ATHENS, May 15 (Reuters) - Greece will hold a new election after politicians failed to form a government on Tuesday, nine days following an inconclusive vote, prolonging a political crisis that pushes it closer to bankruptcy and exit from the euro.

After a third day of failed talks with political leaders, a spokesman for President Karolos Papoulias said the process of seeking a compromise had been declared a failure and a new vote must be held.

He did not immediately give the date for the new vote, but elections rules suggest it will be in mid June. A caretaker government would be formed on Wednesday, the spokesman said.

"For God's sake, let's move towards something better and not something worse," Socialist party leader Evangelos Venizelos told reporters after the meeting. "Our motherland can find its way, we will fight for it to find its way."

Greece remains without a government since its inconclusive election left parliament split between supporters and opponents of a 130 billion euro bailout package reviled by Greeks for imposing deep wage, pension and spending cuts.

Polls show the leftist SYRIZA party, which rejects the bailout and placed second in last week's vote, is now on course to win, a result that would give it an automatic bonus of 50 seats in the 300-seat parliament.

European leaders say that they will cut off funding for Greece if it rejects the bailout agreed in March, which would mean bankruptcy and all but certain exit from the European single currency.

Wikileaks regarding pressures on the Greek government on the dispute between Greece and FYROM

 
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/202414

The following classified information was released by Wikileaks yesterday regarding the Macedonian dispute between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) 
(translated from http://www.protothema.gr/politics/article/?aid=93125):

“Different methods used to convince the Greek side to remove the requirement for change to the passports of FYROM (i.e. to replace the designation of the nationality of FYROM as "Macedonia", which is currently displayed on the passports, by another adjective) was attempted at the end of 2009 by U.S. and French officials (Mr. Jean-David Levitt). One classified document from the U.S. State Department, referred to meetings on September 11, 2009 that the assistant U.S. Secretary of State, Mr. Philip Gordon conducted with senior officials from the French government.  In this meeting in Paris, Mr. Gordon and Mr. Levitt discussed the (then upcoming) elections in Greece on October 4, 2009 as: ‘Mr. Levitt expressed his optimism that a new Greek government will be more stable and would allow greater flexibility for progress in the dispute between Greece and Skopje on the name issue’.

In response, Mr. Gordon agreed that ‘a more solid conservative or a socialist government would be a stronger and more flexible negotiating partner in dealing with this issue’. Indeed, he expressed his hope that if the international community could convince FYROM to abandon the idea of a referendum (whereby, as said by PM Gruevski), Skopje citizens would approve or reject a possible compromise, and if Greece was persuaded to abandon the need for change of passports, then the issue could progress to a possible solution.

The main issue for Greece here is that in the event of a solution, how will the passports of FYROM citizens be modified? Will the change appear only in the name of the country, or will it also be reflected on the identification of the people? It is possible, for example, FYROM be named (the reference is random) 'Northern Macedonia', and the citizens of the country be referred to as ‘Macedonians’? Or will they be known as ‘Northern Macedonians’?

Even today the official name of the neighboring country is FYROM; the nationality of FYROM is formally ‘of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’. Another major problem is the ongoing effort of Skopje to show the existence of a Macedonian ethnic identity, and therefore the existence of so-called ‘ethnic Macedonians’.

After this latest release from Wikileaks, it is fairly obvious to all what kind of role the U.S. is playing in order to resolve the Macedonian dispute.”