President of the Republic Karolos Papoulias began a critical meeting at noon Sunday with leading political party leaders in a final effort to form a government, just one week after the inconclusive May 6 general elections.
Under the procedures set out in Article 37 of the Constitution, Papoulias convened the leaders of the first three parties -- New Democracy (ND), the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) and PASOK -- after successive exploratory mandates to the three in turn failed to find common ground for the formation of a coalition government with a parliamentary majority in the 300-member unicameral House.
Papoulias is initially meeting together with ND leader Antonis Samaras, SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras and PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos.
Following, he will have one-on-one meetings with the leaders of the other four parties elected to parliament in last Sunday's elections: Independent Greeks leader Panos Kammenos, Communist Party of Greece (KKE) leader Aleka Papariga, ultra-right Chryssi Avghi (Golden Dawn) leader Nikos Mihaloliakos, and Democratic Left (DIMAR) leader Fotis Kouvelis respectively.(AMNA)