EUROZONE-GREECE/ELECTION PREVIEW Two days remain before Greeks head to the polls in a cliffhanger election

Record ID: 135370

  • Title: EUROZONE-GREECE/ELECTION PREVIEW Two days remain before Greeks head to the polls in a cliffhanger election
  • Date: 18th September 2015
  • Summary: ATHENS, GREECE (FILE- JANUARY 25, 2015) (REUTERS) WOMAN CASTING BALLOT BALLOT BEING CAST BALLOTS IN BOX MAN CASTING BALLOT BALLOT BEING CAST
  • Embargoed: 3rd October 2015 13:00
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  • Location: Belgium
  • Country: Belgium
  • Topics: General
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  • Story Text: As Greece's snap election campaign drew to a close on Friday (September 18) no clear winner had emerged, setting the stage for a cliffhanger vote on Sunday (September 20) between the political left and right, and the near-certainty the next government will be a coalition.
    Voted into office on an anti-austerity platform, the charismatic leader of the leftist Syriza party, Alexis Tsipras, forced the election by resigning in August, trying to quell a rebellion in his party and win a stronger mandate to push through austerity measures linked with Greece's third bailout.
    When Tsipras swept to power in late January on an anti-bailout ticket, he promised his fellow Greeks that five years of austerity were over.
    Eight months later, having shifted rightward on the political spectrum and performed a spectacular U-turn along the way by signing the country up to more spending cuts and tax hikes, he is asking the same voters to give him a second chance on Sunday.
    But most of the hard-left faction that formed Syriza's ideological core have since defected, leaving Tsipras walking a political tightrope as he also pitches for the centrist vote.
    "We will keep fighting, more determined, more experienced, more grounded in reality, because only he who is embedded in reality can truly change it," Tsipras said during a pre-election rally whose numbers fell far short of the tens of thousands that had gathered to hear him in July, when he asked Greeks to vote 'No' and reject creditors' terms for a loan agreement, in the country's first referendum in 40 years.
    Amidst capital controls and shuttered banks a decisive 62 per cent of Greeks voted 'No' - but the very next week Tsipras returned from Brussels with a deal chock-full of new austerity measures.
    He said that he did not regret his U-turn, as the alternative to clinching a deal would mean a disorderly default and create intense hardship for the Greek people.
    But his abrupt resignation may yet backfire, as his conservative rivals have surged in the polls as his own popularity has waned, and the breakaway Popular Unity party, led by his former energy minister, Panagiotis Lafazanis, is likely to pass the three percent threshold to enter parliament.
    Of the five polls published on Thursday (September 17) and Friday, two put Syriza ahead, two had conservative New Democracy ahead, and one was a tie.
    In each poll, however, neither party came close to the 38 per cent threshold widely believed to be needed to establish a majority in the 300-seat parliament.
    "It was a change, because people were more or less tired of the political scene in Greece and they decided, or many did, to vote Syriza, Tsipras's party into power. Of course, seven months may not be a good period of time to judge a party, but in this particular case, the mistakes made are so grand that one can really gasp at the outcome," vice president of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), Thanos Veremis, said.
    The winner of Sunday's vote will need to oversee deep economic reforms required for an 86-billion-euro bailout brokered in August, a recapitalisation of the country's banks, and the unwinding of capital controls imposed this year to prevent an implosion of the financial system.
    New Democracy has been keen to highlight perceived credibility issues under Syriza.
    "The only thing new that Syriza introduced was capital controls, which stuck a knife into our collective dignity," New Democracy leader Vangelis Meimarakis told cheering supporters in a central Athens square, as he reiterated his promise to create a broad and stable coalition government.
    "New Democracy, the conservative party, is asking for cooperation among the eurocentric parties in parliament, and frankly, they are the majority if you count the numbers, but we don't know whether Tsipras will be number one and his party, or Meimarakis and his New Democracy, whatever the outcome, I think they will have to cooperate, there's no other way out," Veremis said, adding: "People are tired, and they want a cooperation between, I think, between the major factions of politics."
    Two pro-European Union parties, socialist Pasok and centrist Potami say they want to be the ones to help implement the reforms and have cast themselves as a stabilising influence over a government led by either the leftists or the conservatives.
    Both Syriza and New Democracy have pledged to uphold the bailout terms, but disagree on pivotal matters such as freeing up the labour market, collective bargaining and immigration.
    "Whoever wins will probably have to carry this Sisyphean rock to the top of the hill. Hopefully the rock won't tumble on our heads this time," said Veremis.
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