Progressive Alliance

A meeting of political party leaders convened by President Katerina Sakellaropoulou in a final attempt to form a coalition government after Sunday's inconclusive elections proved unsuccessful on Wednesday.

The good news is that a public discussion has started on how much the measures and benefits being announced by the political parties if they win the elections are going to cost. That said, the discussion tends to be limited to the old question: Where will the money come from?

Democratic Front MPs at a Montenegrin parliament session in Podgorica. Photo: Parliament of Montenegro

They said on Saturday that pro-Serbian politicians Andrija Mandic and Milan Knezevic's New Serbian Democracy and Democratic People's Party will go to polls as a coalition, while Nebojsa Medojevic's Movement for Changes will compete on its own.

Campaign policies are in short supply ahead of Albania's May 14 local elections, in which the ruling Socialists face a Democratic Party split in two.

The main opposition party is bracing for a defeat in the May 21 polls and PASOK has gone back to the "bad unionist" days of the 1980s, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Tuesday, insisting that an outright victory for the ruling conservatives is the only way forward for the country.

With the election campaign entering the final stretch, the confrontation between ruling New Democracy and PASOK has also intensified, with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, in all his recent interviews, having particularly harsh words for Nikos Androulakis.

Government spokesman Akis Skertos has ruled out the possibility of New Democracy joining forces with PASOK to form a coalition government after the elections on May 21, blaming Socialist leader Nikos Androulakis for keeping a hardline stance.

Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias briefed the representatives of the parliamentary parties on the situation in Sudan on Tuesday.

It's a somewhat unusual yet positive development for the country: Despite the toxicity and the bitter clashes on almost every domestic policy issue one can think of, which will intensify as we get closer to the general elections in May, for the first time in many years there is broad consensus on the country's geopolitical orientation.

It is the first definitive electoral personal defeat of Djukanovi since his entry into state politics in February 1991.
Djukanovi was defeated in the first round of the presidential elections in 1997, but emerged as winner in the second.
Djukanovi received the unanimous support of the DPS Main Board for this new candidacy at the session held on February 24.