Elections in Greece

After the results of the September 2015 Greek elections came in there was no real surprise, besides the margin by which left Syriza won. The composition of the new Greek parliament saw an 8-party assembly, with the addition to the previous seven parties of the ‘Union Centrists’ of Vassilis Leventis.

Official results released by the Interior Ministry with 99.53% of votes counted:

SYRIZA 35.47% (145 seats)

New Democracy 28.09% (75 seats)

Golden Dawn 6.99% (18 seats)

Democratic Group (PASOK-DIMAR) 6.28% (17 seats)

Greek Communist Party (KKE) 5.55% (15 seats)

Potami 4.09% (11 seats)

Independent Greeks ANEL 3.69% (10 seats)

Three more opinion polls by … well-known polling companies were released on Thursday, with the first (by Metron Analysis) giving conservative New Democracy a razor-slim 0.3 percentage point lead over leftist SYRIZA, while another (by Alco) had the exact same difference, but with SYRIZA ahead – 25.3 to 25 percent for ND.

The third opinion poll (Pulse) shows a tie, at 28 percent.

The ancient Greek considered citizens who abstained from the decision making process and the political life of their community to be an ’idiotis’. It was a disparaging term for someone who had consciously detached himself from taking a position on the problems of his community.

By Pantelis Boukalas

Greek MPs failed on Dec. 23 to elect a president in a second vote in parliament, bringing an early general election, feared by financial markets and the country's EU-IMF creditors, a step closer.
      
The government candidate, EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas, fell 32 votes short of the required 200 votes, meaning a third and final vote will be held on December 29.

Independent MP Vassilis Kapernaros said on Tuesday that he would not vote for any candidate the government puts forward early next year to succeed President Karolos Papoulias.

According to the final results of the May 25 elections for the European Parliament that came out last week, Golden Dawn (GD) became the third strongest Greek party among the European deputies attracting more than half a million votes and nearly 10% of the national vote. Hence it sent three out of a total of 21 deputies to the new European Parliament.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is due to meet Deputy Prime Minister Evangelos Venizelos on Thursday to discuss Sunday’s election results.

The two men are due to meet at 6 p.m. after New Democracy came second in the European Parliament vote. The PASOK-led Elia alliance came fourth.

By Paul Tugwell & Eleni Chrepa

Voters in Thessaloniki and 10 municipalities in the metropolitan area of the second-largest city in Greece cast ballots that almost unanimously opposed the sale of the region’s biggest water utility.