Greek Elections - A Two Horse Race?

[TonyKath]

The Guardian gives a good summary of the background to the elections this coming Sunday and the state of play of the fairly consistent opinion polls.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2015/jan/20/greece-election-2015-the-politics-and-economics-in-numbers

Syriza are four percent ahead of New Democracy (35%:31%) with the plethora of other parties trailing far behind (unlike 2012) and PASOK remaining wiped out.  Greece has a highly complicated proportional voting system with the winning party being given an extra 50 seats (out of the total of 300).  That could be enough to swing it for Syriza but you couldn't rule out another coalition, possibly even ND and PASOK again, though doubtful on the arithmetic IMHO.

If Syriza don't reach the 150 seats who would go into go into coalition with them and would Syriza be prepared to compromise on defaulting on the debt and leaving the Euro???!

And with either an outright win for Syriza or them being the major party what would happen to the rest of us...?? 

[Edit: No of majority premium seats corrected to 50 - Sorry]

Tony

[TonyKath]

The last polls are showing the gap between Syriza and ND widening: 33.4% : 26.7%, with GD, PASOK, The River and KKE all round 5%, others 3% or less. 

Looking in to it further a single party needs 41.4% of the vote to get the bare majority of 151 seats including the extra 50.  So a further coalition would be needed.  Assuming this isn't Syriza and ND (LOL!) Tsipras would need PASOK and who else?? KKE resolutely refuse to join a coalition which remarkably would leave only Kinima (Movement of Democratic Socialists) but currently they are under the 3% threshold, so possibly they might end up with the newly formed River party if they would agree.  The Independent Greeks are to the right of ND and would not support Syriza. 

Syriza have dumped some of the more hostile anti EU policies and have focussed on relieving the effects of austerity for the most severely affected under the slogan"[Edit:] Hope is Coming", plus taxing earnings over €500K at 75%, and negotiating a debt default.  They are promising "no U turns", and it will be interesting to see what the prospect of coalition government will bring.

For the poll results in Greek plus further analysis including the shifts in voting intention that have brought about such a remarkable move to Syriza (9% from GD amazingly) see:

http://www.tanea.gr/news/politics/article/5202116/h-teleytaia-dhmoskophsh-ths-gpo-gia-to-mega-6-7-monades-mprosta-o-syriza/

There was an interesting report on Channel 4 tonight looking at why such a left wing party was romping away.  They showed an interview with a grape farmer in Assos (not the Kef one!), not at all a natural leftie.  He talked about the impact of land debts on himself and his neighbours and the likelihood of the banks calling them in.  So it's not just the urban poor.

Tony

[Maik]

From the Telegraph: Who are the Greek parties leading the polls? A user’s guide to the elections in Greece

[Jolly Roger]

I was under the impression that if no party holds an overall majority on voting day, then there would be a second round the following Sunday. Presumably smaller parties would be eliminated and could lead to a majority for one party.  Can anyone confirm whether this is the situation?

[BeeTee]

I was under the impression that if no party holds an overall majority on voting day, then there would be a second round the following Sunday. Presumably smaller parties would be eliminated and could lead to a majority for one party.  Can anyone confirm whether this is the situation?

Some info here...

Greek voters go to the polls on Jan. 25 in a general election that will decide whether Europe’s most-indebted country sticks to the economic-overhaul program set out by its troika of official creditors or tries to chart its own course.

This is a guide to the rules governing the voting and the process of forming a government afterward.

-- Voting begins at 7 a.m. on Sunday and finishes at 7 p.m. local time. A total of 9.8 million citizens are eligible to cast ballots, with more than a third of them concentrated in the Attica metropolitan region, which includes the city of Athens.

-- Exit polls will be published at the close of voting. There will be an initial estimate of the result based on ballots counted at about 9:30 p.m and a more accurate estimate before midnight. The vote count will be available on the Interior Ministry’s website: http://ekloges.ypes.gr/.

-- Twenty-two parties are standing for election. They need at least 3 percent of the vote to win seats in the next parliament and polls indicate that as many as seven will pass that threshold. Lawmakers are allocated proportionately among the parties that reach the cutoff and the group with most votes gets an extra 50 seats.

-- Once sworn in, the new prime minister will have 15 days to win a confidence vote requiring 151 lawmakers in the 300-seat parliament. Recent polls suggest neither SYRIZA nor New Democracy will be able to do that on their own.

-- If no single party has an absolute majority, the president of the republic gives the leader of the party with the most votes three days to form a government. If he fails, the three-day mandate is handed to the leader of the second-biggest party, and finally to the leader of the third party.

-- If no one can form an administration, the president will ask party leaders to form a unity government. If that doesn’t work, as happened in 2012, all parliamentary groups will be asked to join an interim government to prepare fresh elections. And if that fails the job of organizing a new vote falls to either the head of the Council of State or the Supreme Court. [Bloomberg]
 
 
 
 
 

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite3_1_23/01/2015_546466