ATHENS — Talks to form a new Greek government appeared near collapse on Sunday after the leader of a left-wing party that favors rejecting Greece’s loan agreement with foreign creditors again refused to join a unity coalition, making new elections almost a given.
President Karolos Papoulias was expected to meet with the leaders of several smaller parties on Sunday evening to try to persuade them to join a two-year unity government with the Socialists and the center-right New Democracy Party in the hope of enforcing the loan agreement — but with a possible renegotiation of some of its terms.
If Mr. Papoulias fails to get leaders to form a coalition, he will call a new election in a month and appoint an interim government to lead Greece until then. The most likely date mentioned for the election is June 17.
The political wrangling has again highlighted a clash between democracy and market forces. Greece’s political parties need to form a government that both reflects the will of the people — who on May 6 largely voted against the loan agreement and would likely take to the streets if a new government did not listen — but that does not allow the country to renege on its commitments to Europe.
Concerned about the political instability, European leaders have warned that if Greece does not keep its promises, Europe will stop financing it, causing the country to default and exit the euro zone. But Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the Coalition of the Radical Left, or Syriza, has gained momentum precisely by defying Europe’s threat.
On Sunday, he insisted that his party would not join a unity coalition with the Socialists and New Democracy, who signed Greece’s debt deal. Syriza will “not be complicit in their crimes,” he said. “Those that governed the past two years have not only failed to accept the message from the elections. They continue their policy of blackmail.”
“We call on all Greeks, not just leftists, to condemn once and for all the forces of the past,” he said, “and to realize that the only hope that is still alive in this country is to unify against blackmail and stop the continuation of this barbarism.”
Mr. Tsipras called on the conservatives and socialists to go ahead and form a coalition with Democratic Left, a moderate leftist party that splintered from Syriza in 2010 and that maintains resistance to the debt deal as a central plank in its political platform. “They have 168 seats, they have a majority, let them proceed,” Mr. Tsipras said, referring to the total in Greece’s 300-seat Parliament won by the three parties last week.
In a statement, Democratic Left called Mr. Tsipras’s suggestion “slander.” On Sunday afternoon, a party official said Democratic Left would not change its position, because a government without Syriza would “lack legitimacy and could stoke social unrest.”
“The rage of Syriza is such that they would not allow such a government to stand even for a day,” the official said, predicting a wave of sit-ins and protests led by the left-wing party.
Syriza, which placed second in the election with 17 percent of the vote and which polls indicate would place first in a new election, has become the vessel for growing anger in Greece at the two once-dominant parties, which signed the loan agreement and had their worst election showing since their founding in 1974. New Democracy placed first with 19 percent, with the Socialist Pasok party at 13 percent — compared with a combined average of 80 percent for the two parties in previous elections.
Indeed, in last week’s elections, the parties that supported Greece’s 170 billion euro loan agreement with its so-called troika of foreign lenders — the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund — shared less than 40 percent of the vote, making it nearly impossible for any future Greek government to adhere to the current agreement.
The loan agreement stipulates steep wage cuts and tax increases in exchange for 170 billion euros in loans and the largest debt write-down in history, and after it was signed in February, the technocratic prime minister, Lucas Papademos, said, “Sadly, the only alternative to today’s agreement is a catastrophic default.”
Since then, Socialist Pasok and New Democracy have shifted their rhetoric, saying they would support a unity government based on maintaining the euro and enforcing the loan agreement, but renegotiating key elements, suggesting that there is room for alternatives that Mr. Papademos once excluded.
Still, Mr. Tsipras refused to join. After meeting with the president, he said his party “does not say one thing to voters before elections and another afterward.”
“We will not betray you,” he added.
On Sunday, Antonis Samaras, the conservative leader, showed his frustration with Mr. Tsipras’ intransigence. “I made every effort to contribute to forming a unity government, but Syriza does not want to heed the popular mandate,” he said.
He added that the Syriza leader had rejected not only the prospect of joining a unity coalition with the conservatives and the Socialists but also a second proposal to give his vote of confidence to a unity government that would exclude Syriza but that would renegotiate the debt deal.
“I don’t understand where Syriza is going with this,” Mr. Samaras said.
The Socialist leader, Evangelos Venizelos, was busy picking up the pieces of his shattered party on Sunday. He said the talks under the president had ended in “deadlock,” but added that he believed there was still some hope for a coalition. “I maintain some optimism for a unity government, but we’re also prepared for elections,” he said.
Mr. Venizelos, who as finance minister signed Greece’s second loan agreement in February, made the brief reference to the meeting in a speech to newly elected Socialist members of Parliament, in which he focused on the party’s failures and on what it must do to rebound. On Friday, he said the party had “rotted” and needed renewal, possibly with a younger leader.
