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Voting starts in Greek election with Alexis Tsipras narrowly ahead in polls Voting starts in Greek election with Alexis Tsipras narrowly ahead in polls
(about 1 hour later)
Voting has started in the Greek general election with leftwinger Alexis Tsipras, who lost his bitter fight with Europe over its austerity programme, seeking to retain power a month after he resigned as prime minister. Greeks have begun voting in an election whose outcome analysts say is too close to call and whose consequences will, for most people, be largely the same no matter who wins.
His Syriza party is in a tight election race with the conservative New Democracy party of Vangelis Meimarakis, who accuses Tsipras of incompetence in dealing with international creditors who have been bailing out the debt-strapped country.
Related: Greece awaits outcome of Alexis Tsipras gamble: ‘We have all aged’
Voting started at 4am GMT, with just under 10 million Greeks eligible to vote. It was scheduled to end at 4pm GMT with an early vote projection expected two hours later.
Opinion polls suggest Tsipras may have the edge but the margins are so narrow that a win for Meimarakis would not be surprising.
Neither party, however, is expected to get the roughly 38% of the vote generally seen as needed for a clear majority in the 300-seat parliament.
That means whoever gets the most votes – and a 50-seat bonus that goes with it – will need to form a coalition, probably with one or both of the small centrist To Potami and socialist Pasok parties.
The election is being watched closely outside Greece because the winner will need to oversee economic reforms required for multibillion-euro bailout Tsipras was forced to broker in August with Athens’ eurozone partners.
The new government will also have to arrange a recapitalisation of the country’s banks, and the unwinding of capital controls imposed in June to prevent an implosion of the financial system.
Both Syriza and New Democracy have pledged to do that - but there are differences on the margins over such issues as labour reform.
Related: Greek election 2015: everything you need to knowRelated: Greek election 2015: everything you need to know
Sunday’s vote is the third national ballot this year after the general election in January that brought Tsipras to power and a referendum in July on whether to accept a new bailout deal and austerity plan from the European Union. Late polling put the outgoing leftist premier, Syriza’s Alexis Tsipras, a point or two ahead of his centre-right rival, Vangelis Meimarakis of New Democracy, but neither party looks likely to gain an outright majority.
The answer to the latter was a resounding no, but with Greece close to tumbling out of the eurozone, Tsipras went ahead and agreed a new deal he did not want. Both have already agreed to implement the tough terms of Greece’s latest €86bn bailout and so will have, whichever leads the new government, the same daunting to-do list: a radical overhaul of the country’s shattered economy and major changes to its welfare, pensions, health and taxation systems.
He then resigned and called a snap election. Fresh funds will not be released unless the cash-for-reforms programme is implemented, with progress – in the form of some 120 new laws by year-end – to be reviewed quarterly by Greece’s international creditors.
In his final campaign rally, Tsipras said a Syriza victory would show “whether the old system that ruled for 40 years will return, or whether we take a step forward”. Voters must “say no to corruption, no to the enshrining of the oligarch establishment”, he said.
Meimarakis told supporters that Tsipras had held out “false promises” about ending the punishing austerity measures that have seen the Greek economy shrink by a quarter and left nearly 26% of its workforce unemployed.
“It’s time we did away with incompetence,” said the 61-year-old former defence minister and parliamentary speaker, who has tried to lead his party more to the centre and been rewarded with an unexpected bounce in its popularity. “The Syriza experiment ends on Sunday.”
The election is Greece’s fifth in six years. Tsipras swept to victory in January pledging to “eradicate” austerity, but after months of brutal negotiations, with capital controls in place and ejection from the eurozone looming, Tsipras was forced to perform an about-turn.
The government’s acceptance of the deal despite more than 60% of voters rejecting austerity in a July referendum has left legions of its supporters feeling betrayed – although many still Tsipras, despite his mistakes, represents a necessary break with corrupt past regimes.
Neither party looks likely to secure the roughly 38% share of the vote needed for an outright majority in Greece’s 300-seat parliament. Whoever wins will need the support of perhaps two smaller parties, leaving coalition talks – most likely with the other main pro-European parties, the centrist To Potami and socialist PASOK – a near certainty.
Tsipras has repeatedly ruled out collaborating with New Democracy, an option Meimarakis has held out. Greece’s creditors have hinted they would favour a “grand coalition” which might enjoy the broad backing that will be needed to implement the bailout reforms.
But Syriza and New Democracy would in all likelihood make uneasy bedfellows, disagreeing profoundly on several key issues including freeing up the Greek labour market, collective bargaining and immigration.
About 9.8m Greeks, many suffering election fatigue, are eligible to cast their ballot. In theory, voting is compulsory but the rule is not enforced; turnout for this election is thought likely to fall below the 64% recorded in January.
Polls close at 7pm local time (5pm BST), when the major Greek TV stations will broadcast their exit polls. The main results – which is the biggest party, and who has how many seats – should be clear by about 10pm local time.