dominant political parties made a last push on Friday to avert a new election, which a poll showed would give victory to a radical leftist and doom an EU bailout. The majority of Greeks want to stay in the euro zone but voted last Sunday for parties that reject the severe terms of a bailout negotiated with foreign lenders last year. European leaders say Greece will be ejected from the common currency if it turns its back on the package of tax hikes and wage cuts. Socialist PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos, whose party once towered over Greek politics but placed a distant third in Sunday's election, is the last politician to have a chance to form a government. He met conservative rival Antonis Samaras, whose New Democracy party came first in the election, but who has already failed to form a coalition. If Venizelos fails as well, all parties will have one last chance to try before a new election must be held in the coming three to four weeks. After the meeting, Samaras told lawmakers from his party he was trying to avert a new election but was not afraid of one. “We are fighting to form a government and there are still hopes for this,” he said. A new vote could be catastrophic for Samaras, whose party benefited on Sunday from a rule that gives 50 bonus seats to the group that placed first. In a re-run he stands to lose those seats to Alexis Tsipras's hard left SYRIZA - wiping out more than a third of the pro-bailout contingent in the 300-seat parliament and making it inconceivable that the next government would back the austerity package. PASOK and New Democracy jointly negotiated the 130 billion euro ($168.5 billion) EU/IMF bailout in a reluctant coalition last year and now are the only parties in parliament that support it. They say the bailout saved Greece from bankruptcy, but most of the public believes its tough conditions make it impossible for Greece to resume economic growth and emerge from five years of recession that has profoundly worsened the quality of life. Enraged voters punished PASOK and New Democracy by reducing their combined share of the vote from 77 percent to 32 percent at last Sunday's election. Even with the 50 bonus seats they were two seats short of forming a coalition. Samaras and Venizelos may be hoping Greeks, frightened by the prospect of hasty ejection from the euro, will return to the traditional mainstream parties if the election is re-run. But the new opinion poll showed the main beneficiary of a new vote would be Tsipras, a 37-year-old former civil engineer and student leader who demands the bailout be torn up.
