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Greece's radical leftist Syriza party attempted to build an anti-bailout coalition on Tuesday in the aftermath of elections which produced a hung parliament just as the country faces stern warnings from the European Union and Germany to abide by its bailout deals.

Alexis Tsipras, 37, the leader of the Radical Left Coalition, or Syriza, received the three-day mandate from President Karolos Papoulias, a day after conservative New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras failed to build a coalition.

Syriza, which came a surprise second in Sunday's elections, has been campaigning to scrap EU/IMF bailout conditions.

"The public has voted in large masses against the barbaric policies of the EU memorandum," said Tsipras.

Voters ended up punishing mainstream parties, New Democracy and the Socialist Pasok, for those parties' handling of the financial crisis, which has forced the country into a fifth year of recession and brought on record unemployment.

Instead, the electorate directed their support towards several smaller parties, ranging from moderate leftists to an extreme right fascist party accused of attacks against immigrants.

A large proportion, disillusioned with the entire political system - which they see as being corrupt - refused even to vote, with abstention recorded at an all-time high at nearly 35 per cent.

Tsipras will be given three days to seek coalition partners to clinch a deal. If he fails, the mandate will then go to former finance minister Evangelos Venizelos, whose Socialist Pasok party came in third.

If no agreement can be found, new elections will be called, probably for June.

The Syriza leader is expected to approach other parties to the left of the political spectrum in a bid to form a left-led coalition. Such a grouping would likely propose a rejection of the bailout terms imposed by the European Union and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in exchange for emergency funds.

His goal will be to win over the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and the Democratic Left, seen as a more moderate and pro-Europe group.

His efforts may prove fruitless, however, after KKE already rejected any possibility of cooperation with Syriza.

Tsipras is also expected to meet with the heads of smaller leftist parties which did not pass the three-per-cent threshold needed to get into parliament, in an effort to bolster Syriza ahead of a possible second round of elections.

The leftist leader appeared more inclined to act on the punishing message sent by voters, fed up with austerity measures, than to worry about warnings from Brussels and Berlin.

"The election results in Greece show that there is an absolute lack of hope. This dilemma we have to remedy," said Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who also chairs the Eurogroup panel of eurozone finance ministers.

Meanwhile, the bloc's executive was more harsh in its message to Athens - calling for austerity or default.

"The programme countries, they have no alternative - except disorderly default, which I think is not an alternative - than to pursue courageous fiscal consolidation measures," Jose Manuel Barroso, the bloc's executive told reporters in Brussels. "Growth and consolidation, we need both."

He insisted that it would be "irresponsible" for the European Commission to recommend a further increase in sky-high national deficits for the sake of achieving growth - which has emerged as the new mantra in the face of growing public anger over austerity.