THE Communist Party of Greece ruled out taking part in any coalition with Syriza after the launch on Saturday of the country’s national election, set for May 21.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met President Katerina Sakellaropoulou to propose the dissolution and she accepted it, as obliged by the Greek constitution. 

The prime minister’s centre-right New Democracy party will be hard-pressed to continue leading Greece in another single-party government. 

Next month’s legislative election will be the country’s first under a proportional representation system, and polls show that none of the leading parties is expected to receive a majority of votes.

Observers suggest New Democracy, main opposition Syriza or the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, are likely to need a coalition in order to form a government.

But the Communist Party of Greece, known as the KKE, the parliament’s fourth-largest party, has flatly refused to consider joining any coalition.

KKE general secretary, Dimitris Koutsoumbas, told the Proto Thema newspaper: “The fact that we do not take part in an anti-popular government with Syriza or any other party of the system does not mean that we do not embrace popular people, honest militants who believed in those parties in the past, were disappointed by them and today see hope only in the KKE.”