ATHENS – With a seeming certainty that a second round will be needed after the balloting ends in Greece’s May 21 elections, the two leading parties are seen looking toward the third – PASOK-KINAL – as a possible coalition partner.

But the center-left movement’s new leader, Member of the European Parliament Nikos Androulakis, who’s in a position to be a kingmaker, is hedging his bets on what he’ll do.

He said he won’t, however, agree to join any government that keeps Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at the head of a New Democracy-led administration, nor returns major opposition SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras back to power.

So what will he do? He hasn’t said but joining New Democracy as a junior partner, even if makes him Deputy Prime Minister, would require swallowing his pride and a lot more because he was under phone bugging surveillance by the National Intelligence Service EYP.

Mitsotakis said he didn’t know that, would never have allowed it, and apologized to Androulakis, who would then have to support spying on citizens that he railed against when he was the target.

Androulakis said that, “Greeks in the elections of 21st May will vote for a new hope, for a new prospect,” and indicated he was unlikely to be part of anything with Mitsotakis at the helm.

He said that Mitsotakis, after months fter months of cultivating “anti-institutional speculative scenarios …. as he fervently sought for a personal life raft, today announced the end of his failed government,” in setting the date.

Androulakis pointed that Mitsotakis had also attempted to set a date for a possible second round of elections for early July, ignoring the will of voters an the Constitution, noted the state-run Athens-Macedonia News Agency AMNA.

“The Mitsotakis government is distinguished by the collapse of the alleged ‘top-down efficiency’ state, by clientelism, the increase of social inequity and the undermining of the rule of law and of independent authorities, as well as extensive phenomena of corruption,” Androulakis said.

He added that, “The citizens will vote for the Greece we deserve to live in, for the state that will guarantee the public interest, social justice, equitable growth, transparency and meritocracy. In an economy that is resilient, sustainable, Greek, with dignity and prosperity for all.”

The May 21 vote will take place under a new proportional representation system, making it difficult for any party to gather a majority because the former ruling Radical Left SYRIZA removed a 50-seat bonus in the 300-member Parliament for the first place finisher.

That means a coalition partner would be needed but Mitsotakis said he wants to rule outright again, setting up the scenario of a second round with an interim government in the meantime.

The second balloting would give the winner a sliding scale of 20-50 seats extra depending on the percentage of the vote but coalition ideas are being thrown around that could even involve marginal parties in government.

“If a second round is needed to cancel the adventure of proportional representation, it will take place by early July at the latest,” Mitsotakis said as he’s trying to deal with the tragedy of the head-on train collision that killed 57 and brought rage against his government, which has now been subsiding.