Greek Election Date Narrowed Down

The Wall Street Journal

By STELIOS BOURAS And NEKTARIA STAMOULI

ATHENS—Greece will go to the polls between the end of April and mid-May, government spokesman Pantelis Kapsis said Monday, as government officials kick off meetings with international creditors on the country's next batch of austerity measures.

In comments to privately-owned television station Antenna, Mr. Kapsis confirmed three possible dates on which the country is widely expected to hold national elections: April 29, May 6 or May 13. "It will be one of these three Sundays," he said.

Recent public-opinion polls show that Greeks, increasingly angry over the austerity measures the country must take in exchange for two successive bailouts from its European partners and the International Monetary Fund, are drifting away from the two main parties that have led the nation for the past four decades.

Three polls published over the weekend, show that the two parties—the Socialists and the center-right New Democracy party—would garner less than half the vote if elections were held today, and instead public support for some six to eight smaller fringe parties has sharply increased.

Despite the election being likely to produce a highly-fragmented parliament, Greece's creditors expect the next government to follow through with implementing its reform pledges.

One of its first challenges will be to announce some €11 billion ($14.6 billion) in further austerity measures by June, to cover expected budget gaps in 2013 and 2014. Monday, Greek finance ministry officials started working on the detailed list of cutbacks with a visiting delegation of technical-level representatives from the IMF, European Central Bank and European Commission, also known as the troika.

This follows a legislative sprint in recent weeks by Greek lawmakers who approved reforms needed to clinch the country's second €130 billion bailout, which was finally given the go-ahead after Greece largely completed an unprecedented debt restructuring deal this month.

The measures, which include spending cuts of more than €3 billion and lowering private-sector wages, now need to be followed up with several smaller-scale reforms that the country has promised its creditors, before the Greek parliament is dissolved ahead of elections.

"The deficit in the public sector exists and must be dealt with," Mr. Kapsis said. Among the bills heading to parliament shortly are reforms restructuring the public sector and the deregulation of the taxi industry—both issues that have faced strong opposition in the past and where the government has dragged its feet.

Despite reporting a sharply-narrower budget deficit for the first two months of the year and efforts to reduce its budget shortfall Greece faces an uphill struggle as previous austerity measures weigh further on the economy, already in its fifth year of contraction.

Data showed last week that the shortfall for the January to February period narrowed to €495 million from a shortfall of €1.1 billion in the year-earlier period, after an increase in public investment funding from the European Union.

—Alkman Granitsas contributed to this article.

Write to Stelios Bouras at stelios.bouras@dowjones.com and Nektaria Stamouli at nektaria.stamouli@dowjones.com