The biggest Greek opposition party SYRIZA didn’t reach an agreement for cooperation and joint participation on the elections with the Democratic Left. Although the position of the Democratic Left during the presidential elections and the constant request for announcing early elections lead to the suspicion that there is already some quiet agreement with SYRIZA to join forces for the January elections, yet tete-a-tete talks between the parties failed and the cooperation ended before it ever started.
As the head of the Democratic Left Fotis Kouvelis stated, SYRIZA refused their two main requirements for achieving mutual agreement on a political program that will bind both sides that no unilateral actions by any of the parties regarding the manner of dealing with Greek debt and the request Democratic Left to participate alone in the elections in cooperation with SYRIZA. In fact, Democratic Left is now left high and dry because it closed the door of cooperation with PASOK and New Democracy on account of voting against Stavros Dimas, as well as with SYRIZA. The party has a very low rating and it is assumed that it will not and cannot enter the future composition of the Parliament. The left would have been beneficial to them or to SYRIZA or to New Democracy or to PASOK to get some plus votes and come closer to the desire to form a government after the elections on 25th of January.
Although this premature “divorce” slightly obscures the plans of SYRIZA, the party still has another 20 days to try to reach an agreement with some of the other political parties for a possible joint participation in the elections or to agree on coalition and form a government after the elections. Possible options for cooperation are the rightists Independent Greeks, with who, despite the common ground on economic policy, are not on the same frequency on foreign policy, or the new pro-European party, To Potami, which, according to the ratings, is the third or fourth most popular political option and which attitude for cooperation can decide the fate of the next Greek Government.
Greece is facing 23 long days, full of political negotiations and backstage games for bargaining cooperation between parties in order to form a government.
