Even before the election had been called,
Democratic Left (DIMAR) leader Kouvelis stated that DIMAR would likely not want to participate in a
Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) led government even after repeated elections, as SYRIZA had declined to participate in a unity government with
New Democracy (ND),
PASOK, and DIMAR. Before the election, it was expected that larger parties would try to form alliances with smaller parties; specifically, ND was in negotiations with
Democratic Alliance (DISY), while DISY was also negotiating with
Action (DRASI), and SYRIZA was trying to form an alliance with
Social Agreement (KOISY). There were also rumours of SYRIZA negotiating with the
Ecologist Greens (OP) and
Anticapitalist Left Cooperation for the Overthrow -Front of anticapitalist, revolutionary, communist and radical Left Ecology (ANTARSYA). The other left parties however all ended to decide they would not merge or form a new coalition with SYRIZA. Another important change however happened for SYRIZA on 22 May, where the steering committee decided to transform the "Coalition of the Radical Left", from its 10 coalition parties into a single independent party with the new name "Syriza Unionist Social Front". The driving force behind the transformation from coalition to a united party, was the current Greek election law, stipulating that any coalitions participating in a parliamentary election should have their votes split up for each party in the coalition, before determining who became the largest party in the election and thus qualified to win the 50 extra bonus seats in the parliament. So the transformation by itself, greatly increased the chance of SYRIZA also to win bonus seats in the election. ND and DISY announced a complete merger of the two parties into an overall united party on 21 May, and the following three parties announced on the same day an agreement to run the election as a new joint coalition:
Recreate Greece –
Action –
Liberal Alliance (DX-DRASI-FS).
Social Agreement announced at 19 May their main goal was to establish a new "left government", and in order to achieve such a goal, they would abstain to participate in the election, and instead use all their energy to arrange meetings with all other progressive left parties, with the purpose of creating a convergence program for the parties to make formation of a new "left government" possible after the elections in June. On 28 May the
Democratic Left (DIMAR) however repeated their previous stance, that it would only work with SYRIZA to form a "left government", on the condition that there were guarantees of staying within the eurozone, and this would according to DIMAR require SYRIZA to drop their idea of a unilateral cancellation of the "memorandum" (a nickname for: "The bailout deal that the previous Greek government agreed to implement with the
Commission,
ECB and
IMF"). As none of the other left parties (OP, ANTARSYA and KKE), neither wanted to accept signing the proposed agreement of a unilateral rejection of the "memorandum" in favour of SYRIZAs new "National Recovery Plan", the attempt by Social Agreement to form a multilateral agreement between "all progressive left parties" ahead of the election failed. Instead only a small bilateral agreement between SYRIZA and Social Agreement was signed, outlining what the cornerstones of the new policy should be, if the election ended with a parliamentary majority for SYRIZA to form a one party government. On 7 June, the executive committee of Social Agreement decided they did not want to merge with SYRIZA, and reaffirmed they neither wanted to participate in any political coalitions, because they believed it was needed for them to stay as an independent neutral party, in order best to help creating a consensus among the left parties to form a new SYRIZA led government. On 7 June, an arrest warrant was issued for
Ilias Kasidiaris from
Golden Dawn (XA), after he during a political debate broadcast by ANT-1 TV, as reported by the newspaper Kathimerini: "threw water at SYRIZA's
Rena Dourou and then repeatedly slapped Communist Party hopeful
Liana Kanelli", before the televised signal was interrupted. The
caretaker government and all parties, except for the leader of Golden Dawn, jointly condemned the TV show attack by Kasidiaris with the following statements: The spokesman from the caretaker government
Dimitris Tsiodras said: "This attack is an attack against every democratic citizen. The least that any democratic citizen could expect is for Mr Kasidiaris's party, Golden Dawn, to condemn these actions unreservedly." ND, PASOK, SYRIZA and
ANEL also jointly agreed, not to take part in any television or radio panel discussions with Golden Dawn candidates. An opinion poll published at 1 June by GPO, had indicated that 60% of the votes received by Golden Dawn in the May election, came from Greeks who wanted to express their opposition to the political establishment, while less than 30% of those voting for the party actually supported its extreme views on immigration. A spokesperson from PASOK said: "This young man proved today that he represents a neo-Nazi group, which apart from being far-right is also cowardly and thuggish" and called for those who previously voted for the party to "think again" before casting their June vote. ANEL leader
Panos Kammenos launched the same message by saying "the neo-Nazis have been unmasked on TV. People who voted for the Nazi thugs should react when casting their vote next time."
LAOS'
Georgios Karatzaferis, said Golden Dawn was damaging the country's patriotic front: "It took us 10 years to gain respect and dignity for the patriotic movement. We won't let the party of
Nikolaos Michaloliakos and the parliamentary gang of Mr Kasidiaris to ridicule what we have built all these years. It is time for them to leave political life. Fascism will not pass in Greece." During the campaign, the 8 largest parties presented some political ultimatums about a possible government formation after the election:
EU influence Few hours after the public announcement of the failed attempt by the Greek president to form a new government on 15 May, some Greek officials claimed that German Chancellor
Angela Merkel had suggested to the Greek president during a telephone call, that he should consider to launch a "euro referendum" along with the new "legislative election". One day later it became clear the entire debate had been based on a translated misunderstanding, as Merkel officially denied ever to have made such a proposition to the Greek president. Merkel insisted that she said the election was "in principle...an indirect referendum on euro membership", as the outcome of the election potentially could lead to a development with Greece leaving the euro, if the election was won by parties supporting a Greek rejection of all commitments signed in the Memorandum. British Prime Minister
David Cameron, representing a neutral nation outside the euro, a few days later completely agreed with Merkel's analysis, that the Greek parliamentary election in principle was "an indirect referendum on euro membership". An EU summit ended on 24 May with repeated calls for Greece to stick to the terms of the EU/IMF memorandum, if they wanted to receive more funds to tackle its debt problem and current economic crisis. In the wake of the discussions, SYRIZA's leader Tsipras visited some of the main European cities, to clarify his stance of wishing to unilaterally cancel the Memorandum and at the same time having Greece stay within the eurozone. When the French Finance Minister
Pierre Moscovici on 5 June repeated the European message that a continued euro membership was conditional on the next Greek government continuing to respect the signed commitments in the Memorandum, as the EU would only be willing to accept a re-negotiation of some subterms, Tsipras claimed this was political bluffing and a new message compared to what the French government previously had told him. ==Results==