ATHENS: Faced with the rise of the left in the run-up to a June 17 election crucial for Greece's future in the eurozone, parties on the right are trying to settle old differences and form a common front.
Alexis Tsipras, leader of the radical leftwing party Syriza, is currently on a high-profile visit to France and Germany, building on the momentum which saw his party come second in an inconclusive May 6 vote.
Opinion polls put Syriza which rejects the austerity measures Athens agreed to in return for a second EU-IMF debt rescue package -- among the frontrunners with up to 24 percent support in the repeat election next month.
The pro-bailout conservative New Democracy party of Antonis Samaras, which witnessed a voter backlash this month is now leading the charge against Syriza as the new poll turns into a straight vote on Greece's future in the euro bloc.
On Monday, New Democracy announced that the liberal Democratic Alliance, formed by party dissidents in 2010, was returning to the fold.
"The time has come to set aside our differences," said Democratic Alliance leader Dora Bakoyannis, a former conservative foreign minister and the first woman mayor of Athens.
"We have decided to unite our forces," said Bakoyannis, who was kicked out in May 2010 when she voted against austerity and reform measures tied to a first EU-IMF debt rescue which proved inadequate to keep Greece afloat.
Bakoyannis, the daughter of former conservative prime minister Constantine Mitsotakis, mounted an unsuccessful bid for the party leadership in 2009.
"The times are critical and for this reason, differences of the past are set aside," Samaras said, standing with Bakoyannis for the first time in two years.
"It is with pleasure that I welcome Bakoyanni's decision our message is now stronger," he said.
In an editorial, the centre-right Kathimerini said the ND "will have to carry the weight of the battle that will keep Greece in the eurozone".
Bakoyannis's decision is "the right one and will prove helpful at this difficult time. It makes no sense... as was the case in the past, for selfish considerations and personal aspirations (to get in the way)," it said.
Samaras, who has warned that the June poll will "determine whether Greece will remain in Europe," has made a "responsible and brave decision," it added.
The Democratic Alliance garnered 2.55 percent in the May 6 vote, short of the 3.0 percent threshold required for parliamentary representation.
Two other small parties on the right New Creation and Action, which won 2.15 percent and 1.8 percent respectively said they too were joining forces in an effort to peg back Syriza.
They made no immediate comment on a possible pact with ND but said they will hold a press conference later Tuesday on their alliance.
In the past few days, Samaras has wooed several prominent lawmakers from the nationalist Laos party, which also failed to win seats.
New Democracy came first in the May 6 vote but it and the socialist Pasok, the other mainstay Greek political party which also supported the latest EU-IMF accord, took such a drubbing they could not muster a majority to rule.
The fear is that the June 17 poll could again leave the country without a government, prolonging the uncertainty after more than two years of pain and hardship, and roiling global financial markets nervous of a Greek euro exit.
In Paris Monday, Tsipras kept up the attack on the austerity measures he says have brought Greece to its knees, with the economy slumped in recession for a fifth year.
"There's nothing to negotiate in the (debt accord) because you don't negotiate with hell," Tsipras said before heading for Berlin on Tuesday.
EU leaders, especially German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have insisted that Greece must stick to the terms of the bailout deal or risk losing access to aid funding, a step which would in effect force it out of the eurozone.
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