Greeks were voting on Sunday in the first election since their country’s economy ceased to be subject to strict supervision and control by international lenders who had provided bailout funds during its nearly decade-long financial crisis.
Greek officials have pledged fast results — about 90% of the precincts should have reported by 10 pm local (1900 GMT), three hours after the voting ends, Dimitris Bakakos, general manager of IT services firm Singular Logic, which is tasked with presenting the results, said in a television interview, adding that, by 8:30 pm, there should be enough data to predict the result within half a percentage point.
The vote pitches conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, 55, a Harvard-educated former banking executive, against 48-year-old Alexis Tsipras, who heads the left-wing Syriza party and served as prime minister during some of the financial crisis’ most turbulent years, as the two main contenders.
Mitsotakis has repeatedly stressed that he needs a second term to build on what he says he accomplished during the first. He pressed the same line when he talked to media after casting his vote.
“Today, we vote for our future, for higher wages, for more and better jobs. We vote for a more effective public health system, for a fairer society, for a stronger country, which plays an important role in Europe, with protected borders.”
Tsipras, unsurprisingly, painted a bleaker picture of the present government’s record and emphasized the need for change. “Today is a day of hope. The citizens have in their hands the possibility ... to change the course of the country, to leave behind a difficult four years of inequalities, injustice, profiteering, job insecurity, auctions, indignity for pensioners, the targeting of the youth. To leave behind an arrogant government that does not feel the needs of the many,” he said, also promising “a new ethos and style of governance.”
The rising cost of living was at the forefront of many voters’ minds as they headed to polling centers set up in schools across the country.
“Every year, instead of improving, things are getting worse,” said Athens resident Dimitris Hondrogiannis, 54, “Things are expensive. Every day, things are getting out of control. It’s enough to make you afraid to go to the supermarket to shop. ”
Hondrogiannis said he hoped for a stable government that would help reduce prices for food and general goods. “People cannot make ends meet,” he said.
Although Mitsotakis has been steadily ahead in opinion polls, a newly introduced electoral system of proportional representation makes it unlikely that whoever wins the election will be able to garner enough seats in Greece’s 300-member parliament to form a government without seeking coalition partners.
The winner of Sunday’s election will have three days to negotiate a coalition with other parties. If that fails, the mandate to form a government passes to the second party and the process is repeated; in case of failure the third-place party also gets a chance. But deep divisions between the two main parties and four smaller ones expected to enter parliament mean a coalition will be hard to come by, making a second election likely, probably on July 2. The second election would be held under a new electoral law which makes it easier for a winning party to form a government by giving it a bonus of up to 50 seats in parliament, calculated on a sliding scale depending on the percentage of votes won.
A total of 32 parties are running, although opinion polls have indicated only six have a realistic chance of meeting the 3% threshold to gain seats in parliament.
Greece’s once-dominant socialist Pasok party is likely to be at the center of any coalition talks. Overtaken by Syriza during Greece’s 2009-2018 financial crisis, the party has been polling at around 10%. Its leader, Nikos Androulakis, 44, was at the center of a wiretapping scandal in which his phone was targeted for surveillance.
