Greek leftist to reject loan terms

The head of Greece’s radical left-wing Syriza party said yesterday his Cabinet will reject all austerity measures imposed under an EU-IMF loan deal, if he manages to form a new government.

“The public verdict has clearly nullified the loan agreement and (pledges) sent to Europe and the IMF,” Alexis Tsipras said in a televised address.

The country’s youngest political leader at 37, Mr Tsipras was earlier given three days to form a government by the head of state, President Carolos Papoulias, after a similar attempt by the first-ranked conservative New Democracy party failed.

General elections on Sunday did not produce a clear winner but gave an overwhelming boost to Syriza which now has 52 deputies in Parliament, making it the second biggest party.

The main parties that have pledged to continue deficit-cutting reforms, New Democracy and socialist Pasok, now only send a total of 149 MPs to the 300-seat Parliament, not enough for a re-run of the outgoing coalition led by technocrat Lucas Papademos.

Mr Tsipras called on the leaders of Pasok and New Democracy to renege on their pledges to international creditors, vowing to form an anti-austerity coalition with other leftist parties and abolish a spate of labour laws demanded by Greece’s creditors to improve competition.