The faultlines are so deep that even if a government is formed, many believe it will be a miracle if it survives for long
The morning after the night of Greece's make or break election was surprising only because it was so calm. The banks were open and doing a brisk business. The cafes were full; the roads were protest free.
After weeks of being bombarded by talk of Drachmageddon and the perils her country would face if it had elected radical leftists playing with its eurozone future, Fotini Stamatopoulou woke up heaving a sigh of relief. "I was tremendously happy," said the 30-something aesthetician, "that in the end the left didn't get in because who knows what could have happened? But now I want to see action. I want to see a government formed."
On Monday that task fell to Antonis Samaras, the conservative New Democracy leader whose party narrowly beat the radical left coalition Syriza in a poll that had the world on tenterhooks.
Although the election produced no outright winner, New Democracy captured 29.7% of the vote enabling it to control 129 seats in Athens's 300-seat House. But for Samaras the hard work has only just begun.
After years of reputedly craving the job of prime minister, the ambitious politician faces the Herculean labour of forging a government of "national salvation" at a time of unprecedented crisis.
Not since the collapse of military rule has the country come so close to resembling a failed state. Following almost three months of political paralysis - in the runup and wake of an inconclusive poll in May – Greece's public finances are in tatters, its public administration is in disarray, and its austerity-weary people are broken and beaten down. It has now been left to Samaras to pick up the pieces.
Greeks are acutely aware of how close they have come to the brink. Dependent on loans to prop-up their debt choked economy many also know that time is running out with patience running thin among lenders at the EU and IMF.
"We will remember this as a very dark period. This may be our very last chance," said Vasillis Isporas, a chef who at 28 enthuses at the fact that he has work at all. "We created a system that was totally out of control, a state that had become a big fat cow which everyone wanted to exploit, a political set up that was just plain corrupt."
Isporas voted for Syriza not because he liked its programme or even Alexis Tsipras, its young firebrand leader. "For most of my life I have voted conservative," he says. "But this time, my girlfriend and I voted for the left because we wanted to send a message. We wanted to give the right a lesson. We wanted to say clean up your act."
Sunday's election will be remembered as the ballot that was determined by fear and hope, desperation and rage. Politicians, pollsters and pundits were convinced the conservatives clinched victory not because traditional voters had returned to the fold after the party's defeat in May but because Greeks abandoned traditional allegiances to support a party seen as the best guarantor of keeping their country in the eurozone. Faced with the prospect of Athens being ejected from the shared currency, a large slice of the electorate cast their ballots not with their hearts but with their minds.
"Frankly just the thought of voting for a party that is so responsible for the mess we are in made me retch," said Hara Econopoulou, who at 58 has only ever voted for the socialist Pasok. "But we couldn't go on like this without a government. It was essential that the leading "pro-European" party came first. I came out [of the polling booth] saying may God not cut off my hand!"
A majority of Greeks may identify their future with EU membership – widely credited for the dramatic improvement in lifestyles over the past 30 years – but at least 50% also vehemently oppose the EU- and IMF-dictated austerity that has turned their country into a poverty house.
Syriza's rise in less than two months from outcast to main opposition party has many thinking it is only a matter of time before the far-left group of Marxists, Maoists, ex Euro-communists and socialists comes from behind to snatch power.
The mood among party officials since the election has been one of euphoria and jubilation. "This is only a temporary state of affairs," said Panaghiotis Lafazanis, a senior Syriza cadre. "These barbaric measures cannot continue. Very soon everything will change," he said, intimating that by the end of the year elections will be held again.
After receiving a mandate from the country's head of state to form a government, the Harvard-educated Samaras said he would attempt to create a broad-based coalition that could "re-negotiate" the onerous terms of Greece's latest €130bn loan agreement. "It should have as many parties as possible," he said.
Late on Monday the leader announced he had agreed with the head of Pasok, Evangelos Venizelos, to build a coalition within the three-day period that the mandate foresees.
Once bitter political rivals, the socialists, who came in with 12.3% of the vote, say the creation of a government of "national co-responsibility" is vital if Greece is to be successfully steered through the crisis, its worst in modern times. Combined, the two parties would control a comfortable majority of 162 seats in the Greek parliament.
But acutely aware that without the swing vote New Democracy may not have emerged the victor, cadres said it was essential that the small Democratic Left party was also included. Many insisted that the new administration should not only be determined to enact long overdue reforms but also be seen as the harbinger of a "new era" that could mend the broken trust of Greeks in their own political establishment.
"Fixing that bond is very important. We should form a government with the best people, both in and out of active politics," said the New Democracy MP Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a senior party member. "We are aware that a lot of people voted for us with suspicion because they wanted to keep Syriza out."
But faultlines in Greek society are so deep that even if a government is formed many believe it will be a miracle if it survives for long. To secure further rescue loans Athens has agreed to pass an extra €12bn in budget cuts, measures that are seen as vital if its moribund economy is to reclaim competitiveness. And on Monday creditors lead by Germany appeared in little mood to relent. The fiscal adjustment program might be relaxed but "only marginally," several officials said.
Some 2,500 Greeks have taken their own lives since the outbreak of the debt crisis. Their coffins would run 5km long if put in a line.
"Greek society simply cannot endure any more measures," insisted Mitsotakis. "It's not a question of what party is in office, it is a fact."
