ATHENS (Reuters) – Greece’s Left Coalition party will get an historic chance on Tuesday to form a government opposed to the country’s EU/IMF bailout, after the mainstream conservatives failed to cobble together a coalition following shock election results.

The odds are stacked against it, raising the prospect of fresh elections.

Alexis Tsipras, aged 37, whose party was catapulted into second place by voters angry with austerity, will take on the tough task of wooing small groups into forming the first leftist government in Greece’s modern history.

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greece’s Left Coalition party will get an historic chance on Tuesday to form a government opposed to the country’s EU/IMF bailout, after the mainstream conservatives failed to cobble together a coalition following a shock inconclusive election.

Alexis Tsipras, whose party was catapulted into second place by voters angry with austerity, will take on the tough task of wooing small groups into forming the first leftist government in Greece’s modern history.

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greeks angry at years of austerity shrugged off the risk of a euro zone exit and punished their ruling parties, which failed to win enough votes to form a ruling coalition in Sunday’s election.

With about 95 percent of the vote counted, conservative New Democracy and Socialist PASOK, who have dominated Greece for decades and are the only two major parties supporting an EU/IMF bailout program that keeps Greece afloat, won less than 33 percent of ballots and only 150 out of 300 parliament seats.

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek voters enraged by economic hardship mauled traditional ruling parties in an election on Sunday, putting the country’s future in the euro zone at risk and threatening to revive the region’s debt crisis.

The latest official results, with over 50 percent of the vote counted, confirmed projections showing the only two major parties supporting an EU/IMF bailout that keeps Greece from bankruptcy would struggle to form a workable coalition.

ATHENS (Reuters) – Socialist party leader Evangelos Venizelos is running an uphill race to Sunday’s election, trying to convince angry Greeks that deeply unpopular economic reforms are the only way to escape the worst crisis in decades.

In less than three years, his PASOK party went from a landslide election victory to fifth place in opinion polls, loathed by Greeks for imposing crippling austerity measures and accused by European powers of mishandling a debt crisis that shook the euro zone to its foundations.

ATHENS (Reuters) – Manolis Glezos takes to the podium with the spry step of a young man, lifts his arms in the air and tells thousands of flag-waving supporters the time has come for the Greek Left to unite and rule.

At 89, the former wartime fighter against Nazi occupation, who is running for the Left Coalition party, hopes Sunday’s election will fulfill his lifetime dream.

ATHENS, May 4 (Reuters) – Family history weighs heavily on
conservative leader Antonis Samaras as he battles to lead Greece
after Sunday’s general election.

His great-grandmother, Penelope Delta, a celebrated author
of patriotic children’s books, committed suicide in 1941, unable
to stand the sight of German tanks rolling down the streets of
Athens during World War Two.

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek voters enraged by economic hardship will punish traditional parties in a highly uncertain election on Sunday that could plunge the country into new political chaos and shake the entire euro zone.

At stake is whether Greece sticks with the harsh terms of a hugely unpopular 130 billion euro ($170.83 billion) EU/IMF bailout, or heads down a path that could see it ejected from the single currency, with dire risks for other EU peripheral states like Spain and Italy.

PATRAS, Greece (Reuters) – Greek Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos warned voters they were opening the gates of parliament to the “goose-stepping” far-right and appealed for understanding over his party’s support for austerity in return for an international bailout.

Venizelos took leadership of the Socialist PASOK party, for decades Greece’s largest, earlier this year to try to win back support in next Sunday’s election, when voters are set to punish those parties that backed painful austerity measures.

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek voters are unlikely to pick a clear winner in a snap election that is expected to send a record number of parties to parliament next month and test the international bailout keeping the country afloat.

Political analysts say the outcome of the May 6 election is hard to predict. The conservative New Democracy party is seen ahead but not by enough to take sole charge of the indebted euro zone member.