Feuding Greek leaders united by desire to avoid blame

ATHENS (Reuters) - With the eyes of an impatient Europe on them, Greece's feuding leaders are united by a desire to avoid blame for the harsh austerity required to save their country from a catastrophic default.

Analysts say that despite their posturing, the leaders of the conservative New Democracy party, the centre-left PASOK socialists and the far-right LAOS nationalists, which back Lucas Papademos' government, will ultimately accept the bailout terms demanded by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund to avert chaos.

But some want to dump the internationally respected Papademos and revert to politics as usual as soon as the money is in the bank, while others want to keep him in office for tactical reasons.

Antonis Samaras, 60, New Democracy's leader, is battling to distance himself from unpopular austerity measures and trying to force an early general election shortly after a planned March bailout while his party is ahead in the polls.

"A very important consideration in his movements and calculations is his great desire to become the next prime minister," said Theodore Couloumbis, professor of international relations at the University of Athens.

"The last thing he wants is to be blamed for an unruly default for Greece, whose consequence would be an exit from the euro zone and later from the EU."

Samaras' strategy of denouncing austerity has helped New Democracy recover surprisingly quickly from a disastrous election defeat in October 2009 and the subsequent revelation that its government had concealed a gigantic budget deficit.

Since Athens received its first EU/IMF bailout in 2010, he has steadfastly refused to support tax rises, pay and pension cuts required by international lenders and has been very reluctant to give written undertakings to back such steps in future, despite pressure from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other EU conservatives.

"Greece needs a strong medicine but the one administered was the wrong one since it did not allow for any recovery," Samaras told Reuters in an interview last month. "What we need to do now is reduce tax rates and implement structural changes so as to speed up deficit cutting and recovery."

New Democracy is hoping to win an absolute majority in a general election which Samaras wants held on April 8, but with 30 percent support in opinion polls it is not quite there yet.

PASOK AT HISTORIC LOW

The two other party leaders in the room - PASOK's George Papandreou and LAOS' George Karatzaferis - are keen to ensure that Samaras shares responsibility for the unpopular measures, and to keep Papademos in office and defer an election.

Papandreou, 59, resigned as prime minister in November after an attempt to organize a referendum was met with anger among socialist lawmakers tired of taking responsibility for pay and welfare cuts that hit their core supporters in organized labor, the public sector and the rural poor.

The party's popularity has slipped to a mere 12 percent, the lowest since his father, Andreas, founded PASOK 36 years ago.

While he has made clear he will not seek re-election as party leader in a ballot expected soon, Papandreou remains influential and still controls a large number of PASOK deputies.

To vindicate his past decision and policies, Papandreou is now trying to make the Papademos government work. He wants the technocratic premier to stay in office as long as possible, possibly even until 2013, to give PASOK time to recover.

Ironically, Papandreou and Samaras went to the same elite Athens high school and were room-mates at Amherst College in Massachusetts in the mid-1960s. But their personal relations have soured in the last two years of rivalry, in which Samaras maneuvered to help force Papandreou's departure.

Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, 55, the key negotiator with Greece's creditors seen as best placed to win the PASOK leadership, has staked his political future on a successful outcome to the bailout talks.

"If the talks fail, bankruptcy would entail even more sacrifices... Too many people spend their force on conventional, petty party politics as if nothing has happened, as if we are still in the year 2009 or 1999," he said on February 6.

Political analyst Couloumbis said the finance minister, a brilliant orator and constitutional lawyer, needed a successful, early outcome of the talks as a springboard for his leadership ambitions.

FAR RIGHT STAKE

The far right also has a stake in a deal that keeps the temporary national unity government in office longer.

Karatzaferis, 64, a former New Democracy lawmaker, entered government to try to give respectability to the anti-immigration People's Orthodox Rally (LAOS) that he founded in 2000. His deputies were the only ones who were visibly happy when Papademos was sworn in.

The former bodybuilder and journalist, who once ran a modeling agency, wants to keep the government going as long as possible to boost LAOS' ratings, which are still in the high single figures, and make it an indispensable coalition partner.

"His main concern is to be playing a significant role in a future coalition government," Couloumbis said.

Karatzaferis too has sought to distance himself from austerity, writing in an open letter to the EU authorities: "Reform cannot happen at gunpoint, especially when it requires the participation of the complex structure of an entire society. It is a time bomb for the entire western world."

Papademos, 64, a former Greek and European central banker, is widely respected in public opinion but has struggled to exert authority over the hard men of Greek politics despite having the support of international lenders.

"Since he has not been involved in politics he does not suffer from the public fatigue with Greek politicians. They look at him as a Mario Monti type of person, who does not have the kind of support that would have permitted him to have a small technocratic government rather than this huge circus of 50 people or so in his cabinet," Couloumbis said.

(Writing by Paul Taylor; editing by Janet McBride)