Democracy, Greek Style

October 3, 2009 at 7:28 pm
It seems as though wherever we look there are elections going on at the moment, except in the country which is crying out for one most – the UK. Tomorrows vote is in the country which gave us democracy, uzo, the Ancient Olympics and the book How To Bankrupt Yourself Hosting The Modern Olympics. But will Greece be sending McDoom one final Christmas card from the incumbents or the Socialists? Tomorrow will tell.
Almost 10 million Greeks are registered to vote and will have 23 parties and 3,905 parliamentary candidates to choose from. Some 2 million registered voters are over the age of 71, while almost 250,000 young people will have the right to vote for the first time. Sensibly they managed to hold out until 1952 before surrendering the vote to women, but defeat on that one was inevitable. The most populous constituency is Athens’s ‘B’ district, where 1.3 million are on the electoral register. Voting begins at 7 a.m. and ends at 7 p.m. The winner of the election is expected to be known at about 10 p.m.

In one final impassioned attempt to convince Greeks ahead of tomorrow’s general elections to give New Democracy a third consecutive term in power, Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis attacked PASOK, saying that the Socialists’ plans for government are inadequate and unreliable.

“It is now clear: What PASOK and its leader are promising cannot be implemented,” said Karamanlis of the opposition’s plans for destroying reviving the Greek economy. “If these plans were implemented, they would have wide-reaching consequences for all citizens. The economy would be led into serious problems.”

Karamanlis repeated his campaign theme that PASOK is making promises, such as a rise in public sector pay and pensions, that it knows it cannot keep. The prime minister also accused the Socialists, who were leading the conservatives by 6 percent in an opinion poll two weeks ago, of keeping quiet about their plans to change the tax system.
“Recently PASOK’s leader has been hiding and is not answering any questions,” said Karamanlis, whose invitation for a third televised debate with Papandreou was turned down. “He is not answering because he is scared. He is scared that he might make a mistake and reveal the truth.” Shades of past UK challenges to televised debates between Prime Ministerial contenders in that, with one side ducking a debate when they think there is more to lose than win. Or “having a political Clue”, you might say.

The ban on opinion polls in the last two weeks of the campaign means it is not clear if Karamanlis’s increasingly pointed attacks on PASOK have been having any effect. New Democracy sources are suggesting that the election may be too close to call because it is not clear who, if anyone, undecided voters will support tomorrow. This desperate appeal to floating voters is, of course, election-speak for “We’re toast, lads. Start packing.”

The outcome of the election might hinge on how many parties make it into Parliament and what percentage of the total vote the nonparliamentary parties get. If, for instance, the smaller parties who do not enter Parliament gain a total of 2 percent, the leading party will need 41.8 percent to get 151 seats in the 300-seat Parliament. If the nonparliamentary parties get as much as 5 percent, the election winner will need just 40.6 percent for a clear majority.

Therefore, the final outcome could be decided by whether the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), polling just above the 3 percent needed to elect MPs, and the Ecologist Greens, polling just below the cutoff mark, make it into Parliament or not.

Proportional representation, doncha just love it?