ATHENS, Greece, May 15 (UPI) -- Greece plans to hold new elections after talks on forming a coalition government failed, President Karolos Papoulias said Tuesday.
Papoulias said a meeting will be held Wednesday on forming a caretaker government before the elections, expected to be conducted by mid-June, The Wall Street Journal reported. The country's five largest political parties failed to reach agreement to end the deadlock.
"We are going again towards elections, in a few days, under very bad conditions," Evangelos Venizelos, leader of the socialist PASOK party, said after meeting with representatives of the four other parties.
The Greek constitution requires party leaders to agree on a caretaker government to lead the country into the new elections. If no agreement is reached, the president must appoint the chief justice of either Greece's Supreme Administrative Court, the Supreme Court or the Court of Audits to lead the country to elections, the Journal said.
The country emerged from the May 6 elections deeply divided without a single party or coalition with an outright majority.
Observers have said they fear Greece could fail to make debt payments on the latest $168 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund and European Union and be forced out of the 17-nation eurozone.
