Greece referendum: Polls say 'No' in lead

Early results based on 10 per cent of the votes cast showed Greeks on course to reject a bailout offer from creditors in a referendum on the package on Sunday. The ‘No’ camp had 59.8 per cent of the vote with about 10 per cent of the votes cast, while the ‘Yes’ vote drew 40.1 per cent of the votes, according to figures on the Interior Ministry website. An official projection of the final result was expected late on Sunday night.

Earlier, opinion polls released after Greece’s bailout referendum on Sunday showed the ‘No’ vote ahead, suggesting voters had defied warnings from across Europe that rejection of the creditors’ terms would set their country on a path out of the euro.A telephone poll by the Star television channel carried out during voting and the day before gave a 49-54 per cent range for ‘No’ votes against 46-51 per cent for ‘Yes’.

A similar Mega channel survey, broadcast shortly after polling ended, suggested a 49.5-53.5 per cent ‘No’ vote and 46.5-50.5 per cent for ‘Yes’.Defence Minister Panos Kammenos said in a tweet after polling closed that the Greeks “proved they don’t bow to blackmail, to threats”.The radical left Government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had lobbied for a ‘No’ result, arguing it would strengthen its hand in negotiations with international creditors.

But EU leaders have warned a ‘No’ vote could push Greece on the path to “Grexit” — crashing out of the eurozone.Greece’s voters — many of them angry or fearful at capital controls this week that have shuttered banks and rationed ATM withdrawals — were asked in the referendum whether or not they accepted further grinding austerity in return for European bailout funds.

The question related to a bailout package that expired on Tuesday, the same day Greece became the first developed country to default on a repayment to the International Monetary Fund.“We’re voting ‘No’ but we’re afraid. But when we vote ‘Yes’, we’re afraid as well. We’re afraid on both sides,” Nadia, a 63-year-old retired teacher on the island of Poros, near Athens, said after voting, her eyes red from crying.

“When you have to choose between two bad solutions, you choose the least bad, and that’s clearly ‘Yes’,” said Dimitris Kavouklis, 42, as he voted in an upmarket district of the capital.Tsipras’s flamboyant Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, had slammed Athens’s creditors for raising the spectre of Grexit, pointing out that no legal mechanism exists to force a Grexit.

If a ‘Yes’ resulted, he said he would resign, and the pressure would be on Tsipras to do the same. Initial official results from the referendum were expected later Sunday.Although the referendum offered a long and technical question that many voters grumbled was impossible to understand, minds for the most part were made up, with opinion almost evenly divided.