greek elections archivos

Syriza allies with the Independent Greeks

Syriza and the Independent Greeks will jointly have 166 MPs, but Mr Tsipras is looking to secure a wider support in order to start the promised renegotiations with Greece’s creditors.

With all the votes counted, Syriza won the Greek elections with a 36.34% of the electorate, against a 27.81% of its rival Nea Dimokratia. The noe-fascist party Golden Dawn came third with 6.28%, followed by the centrist The River with 6.05%, the Communist Party at 5.47%, the Independent Greeks at 4.75% and Pasok at 4.68%. George Papandreou, the former Prime Minister, failed to re-elect into Parliament with his new party.

Syriza wins Greek elections

According to the exit polls that were conducted on behalf of the Greek tv networks Syriza is the winner of the Greek elections. This is the exit poll for Mega Channel that has Syriza in the lead with a comfortable margin. According to the statistical scenarios Syriza would need to gather 36.5% in order to get the majority in the Parliament. At the moment this seems a very likely development.

Syriza 35,5 – 39,5%

Nea Dimokratia 23 – 27%

Golden Dawn 6,4 – 8% The River 6,4 – 8%

Pasok 4,2 – 5,2%

How radical is Syriza?

Chaos has always been a scenario for Greece, ever since the bailout. The mix was there: a bankrupt country, crippling unemployment, violent riots, weekly strikes, neo-Nazis in parliament, a rapid decline in living standards that turned into a humanitarian emergency. Outside Greece, in public analysis and private conversations, the possibility of the destabilisation of democracy came up every now and then, some kind of coup that would send the country to the extreme left or right. For those who indulged in these cassandric predictions the rise of leftist Syriza was a vindication: surely this is a rogue party, self-positioned on the Radical Left, with communist roots, and a populist rhetoric? Discussion of the Greek problem has always involved a degree of fear-mongering, which is useful in the manipulation of public opinion, but rather redundant in adding any nuance to our understanding of a foreign context. A useful key-phrase, if one truly wishes to understand Greece in crisis, is “structural reforms”.