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Greece elections: outcome may put country on collision course with European Union Greece elections: outcome may put country on collision course with EU
(about 2 hours later)
After five punishing years of austerity and recession, Greeks have begun casting their votes in a high-stakes election that could set their battered country on a collision course with the European Union. After five brutal years of austerity and recession, Greeks are voting under clear skies in a high-stakes election that could put their country on a collision course with the European Union.
Final opinion polls on Friday showed Syriza, which has pledged to overturn austerity and renegotiate Greece’s debt mountain, with a lead of between four and seven percentage points over its main rival New Democracy, with one poll putting the radical leftist party 10 points clear. Looking confident and relaxed, the Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras strode smiling up the steps of a primary school in the Kipseli neighbourhood of Athens to cast his vote in bright mid-morning sunshine.
But while it seems clear Alexis Tsipras’s barnstorming alliance of Maoists, Marxists, Trotskyists, Socialists, Eurocommunists and Greens will comfortably see off the conservatives of the prime minister, Antonio Samaras, they are far from certain to win the 151 seats they need to govern alone. Final opinion polls on Friday showed his radical leftist party, which has pledged to overturn austerity and renegotiate Greece’s debt mountain, holding a comfortable lead of between four and seven percentage points over its main rival, the incumbent New Democracy.
Polling stations opened for Greece’s 9.8 million voters at 7am local time (5am GMT) and are due to close at 7pm. Initial exit polls, considered a broadly reliable indication of the likely final result, are expected soon afterwards, with a more accurate estimate about two hours later. Surrounded by a throng of reporters and chanting supporters, Tsipras declared election day to be the “last step of the Greek people towards regaining social cohesion and dignity”. Europe’s future was “not the future of austerity – it is the future of democracy, solidarity and cooperation,” he added.
As many as seven of the 22 parties standing are set to gain the 3% of the vote needed to enter parliament. But although the winner collects an additional 50-seat bonus, recent polling has suggested that may still not quite be enough to give Syriza an absolute majority in the 300-seat parliament. Syriza's Alexis Tsipras heads up the polling station stairs to vote pic.twitter.com/DsMtHWrLLv
Tsipras’s fierce anti-austerity, anti-bailout message has found an enthusiastic audience across a now visibly strung-out and worn-down country: since 2009, Greece’s GDP has plummeted by a quarter, its household income by more than a third, and joblessness has trebled, to 26%. His barnstorming alliance of Maoists, Marxists, Trotskyists, Euro-communists, Socialists and Greens looks sure to see off the conservatives of prime minister Antonio Samaras, but they are by no means certain to achieve the 151 seats they need to govern alone.
Swingeing spending cuts and soaring unemployment have seen around 3.1 million people, or 33% of the population, lose their social security and health insurance, leaving the country on the brink of humanitarian crisis. Some 32% of Greece’s population now lives below the poverty line, while 18% are unable to afford basic food needs. Initial exit polls, considered a broadly reliable indication of the likely final result, are expected soon after polls close at 7pm (5pm GMT), and a more accurate estimate about two hours later.
“Light has won over darkness. Victory and a majority are within our grasp,” 40-year-old Tsipras told cheering supporters at his final campaign rally in Crete on Friday, promising to restore the “dignity of the Greek people”. Voting in his home town of Pylos, in the Peloponnese, Samaras said the country would be taking a monumental risk by voting Syriza. “Today we decide if are going forward, or if we are going towards the unknown,” he said.
But the prospect of a Syriza victory has spooked creditors who worry Athens will seek a write-off of at least part of its massive €320bn debt. Some analysts fear a tough Syriza approach to negotiations could push Greece out of the eurozone, although Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, insisted on Friday this was not what she wanted. Voters in Kipseli said the election felt like the most important in Greece’s recent history. “I just voted for the party that’s going to change Greece – in fact, the party that is going to change the whole of Europe,” said Panagiotis, 54, a self-employed electrician.
Tsipras’s line has softened markedly in recent weeks, but several EU capitals are still alarmed by promises to cancel the most draconian budget cuts imposed as part of the country’s €240bn bailout package: the Syriza manifesto pledges, among other things, to reverse the worst wage and pension cuts, restore health insurance and electricity to the needy, and abolish unpopular extra “emergency” taxes. “There has to be change, big change. The economy has collapsed. Poverty has reached proportions … People, ordinary people like you and me, are poking around in dustbins to get food to eat. The young can only find work abroad. Syriza is Greece’s hope.”
If the party does need a coalition partner, its choices are limited. The extreme-right, anti-immigrant, Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn, several of whose 18 MPs are in jail awaiting trial for membership of a criminal organisation, may end up as Greece’s third largest party, but is not an option for them. Maria, 78, a lifelong conservative, said she had voted Syriza for the first time because she had “no confidence left in anyone, any party, who has governed us up until now”.
She added: “Can Syriza do it? We’ll have to see; things are in a very bad way. But at least they seem to care. My grandson – he’s seven – said to his mother, just now: ‘Vote Tsipras, mummy. He talks about the poor people.’”
Dimitra, a 32-year-old bank employee who declined to say for whom she had voted, said something “huge” plainly had to happen in her country. “So much has fallen apart, just stopped working. People are really suffering. But I worry expectations are too high today – no one can fix it alone. The truth is, all of us will have to make it happen.”
As many as seven of the 22 parties standing look set to gain the 3% of the vote needed to enter parliament. But although the winner collects an extra 50-seat bonus, recent polling has suggested that may still not quite be enough to give Syriza an absolute majority in the 300-seat parliament.
Tsipras’s fierce anti-austerity, anti-bailout message has found an enthusiastic audience across a now visibly strung-out and worn-down country. Since 2009, Greece’s GDP has plummeted by a quarter, its household income by more than a third, and joblessness has trebled, to 26%.
Swingeing spending cuts and soaring unemployment have seen around 3.1 million people, or a third of the population, lose their social security and health insurance, leaving the country on the brink of humanitarian crisis. Almost third of Greece’s population now lives below the poverty line, while 18% are unable to afford basic food needs.
“For us, hope is not just a campaign slogan,” said Gabriel Sakellaridis, a young Syriza candidate in central Athens. “Hope has been missing from the Greek people through five years of fear, anxiety, despair. Syriza has convinced them we not just that we want to change this, but that we can.”
The prospect of a Syriza victory has spooked creditors who worry that Athens will seek a write-off of at least part of its €320bn debt. Some analysts fear that a tough Syriza approach to negotiations could push Greece out of the eurozone, although Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, insisted on Friday that this was not what she wanted.
Tsipras’s line has softened markedly in recent weeks, but several EU capitals are still alarmed by promises to cancel the most draconian budget cuts imposed as part of the country’s €240bn bailout package.
“We will start with the things we can easily do, that we can afford, but will make a difference,” said Sakellaridis. “We don’t have a magic wand; people know that. But we can take simple steps to restore some social justice: raise the minimum wage and pension, abolish the most unfair new taxes.”
If the party does need a coalition partner, its choices are limited. The extreme-right, anti-immigrant, Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn, several of whose 18 MPs are in jail awaiting trial for membership of a criminal organisation, may end up as Greece’s third largest party, but is clearly not an option.
The Communist party has refused all cooperation with Syriza. Possible allies could include the new, centrist Potami (River) party, which wants root-and-branch reform of Greece’s dysfunctional state, or the populist Independent Greeks, who agree with Syriza that austerity has to end, but disagree on almost everything else.The Communist party has refused all cooperation with Syriza. Possible allies could include the new, centrist Potami (River) party, which wants root-and-branch reform of Greece’s dysfunctional state, or the populist Independent Greeks, who agree with Syriza that austerity has to end, but disagree on almost everything else.