It is the last day of campaigning today in what could be the closest and most exciting general election since the restoration of Democracy 33 years ago. Elections are always on a Sunday in Greece and campaigning ends the previous Friday, leaving Saturday as “the day for reflection”, where any form of campaigning is illegal.
In total, 9.8 million Greek citizens (anywhere in the world) are eligible to vote (though they can only cast their vote in the part of Greece where they are registered). There are 21 parties representing 3,941 candidates across 56 constituencies (with certain exceptions, each county acts as a constituency). People will be voting in over 20,000 polling stations across Greece. On entering a polling station the voter is given a stack of papers (one paper per party represented in the constituency) and he or she has to go inside a booth, choose one of the parties and put between one and four crosses (depending on the constituency) next to the names of their preferred candidate. The party ballot paper is then put inside a special stamped envelope (that has no identification of the voter), where it has to be sealed and put inside the ballot box.
The polls open at 7:00 am on Sunday and close at 19:00. This is the time that all major TV stations will announce their own exit poll. Exit polls are by far the safest method to predict the winner, and the typically small margin of error usually “spoils the fun” on most election nights, as everyone knows the result even before a single vote is actually counted. This time, however, the result may well be so close that even the exit polls may not be able to predict the final outcome accurately.
Even though we have had no opinion polls the past fortnight (thanks to a new law that prohibits their publication two weeks before the election), all indications (and older polls) suggest a very unpredictable election. About 10% of the electorate is still “undecided” and the difference between the two main parties could be less than 1%. The question though is not “just” which of the two parties will win (the governing conservative ND, or the opposition socialist PASOK), but also whether the first party will win a parliamentary majority.
The new election law makes it more difficult for the first party to have an overall majority than in previous elections. The law has been branded as the “most proportional” one in recent history being both “fairer” as well as “guaranteeing” a stable government. That’s what PASOK thought anyway when they voted it while they were in government 4 years ago (according to the Greek constitution, any change in the election law doesn’t take effect in the next election, but the one after that, unless it was voted by a majority of 3/5 of the MPs).
Only parties with a national share of the vote of 3% or more can elect MPs. There are 300 MPs in the Greek Parliament. 260 of them will be elected proportionately to their party share of the vote in each of the 56 constituencies. The remaining 40 seats are given to the first party, even if the difference between the first two parties is one vote! Therefore, whether or not the first party can achieve an overall majority depends mainly on two things: (a) its share of the vote, and (b) the share of the vote of all the small parties together who haven’t achieved the minimum of 3% to elect an MP; the larger this share of the vote the lower the “majority benchmark” (151 MPs) becomes for the first party.
According to the new law, the “highest” share of the vote needed by the first party to have a majority is about 42.7%. This is the theoretical scenario where most parties elect MPs and the all small parties together count for no more than 0.5%. A more realistic scenario for Sunday’s election is for 5 parties in parliament with the small parties getting between 2%-3%. In this case, the first party could achieve 151 MPs with a share of the vote of about 41.5%.
If you want to find out what happens on Sunday, all you have to do is log onto SymiGreece where we will be here following the election all night. We will also keep an eye on the result here in Symi to see whether the Mr Papakalodoukas’s statement (the Mayor of Symi) made to a national newspaper yesterday, calling for the people of Symi to vote against those responsible for the lack of a ferry connection with Pireus, will mean an even lower support for the governing ND party than is usually the case in Symi, where PASOK consistently achieves a share of the vote in Symi that is above 50%.
ps. The Horio photos below are two of today's photos. See them all here!
In total, 9.8 million Greek citizens (anywhere in the world) are eligible to vote (though they can only cast their vote in the part of Greece where they are registered). There are 21 parties representing 3,941 candidates across 56 constituencies (with certain exceptions, each county acts as a constituency). People will be voting in over 20,000 polling stations across Greece. On entering a polling station the voter is given a stack of papers (one paper per party represented in the constituency) and he or she has to go inside a booth, choose one of the parties and put between one and four crosses (depending on the constituency) next to the names of their preferred candidate. The party ballot paper is then put inside a special stamped envelope (that has no identification of the voter), where it has to be sealed and put inside the ballot box.
The polls open at 7:00 am on Sunday and close at 19:00. This is the time that all major TV stations will announce their own exit poll. Exit polls are by far the safest method to predict the winner, and the typically small margin of error usually “spoils the fun” on most election nights, as everyone knows the result even before a single vote is actually counted. This time, however, the result may well be so close that even the exit polls may not be able to predict the final outcome accurately.
Even though we have had no opinion polls the past fortnight (thanks to a new law that prohibits their publication two weeks before the election), all indications (and older polls) suggest a very unpredictable election. About 10% of the electorate is still “undecided” and the difference between the two main parties could be less than 1%. The question though is not “just” which of the two parties will win (the governing conservative ND, or the opposition socialist PASOK), but also whether the first party will win a parliamentary majority.
The new election law makes it more difficult for the first party to have an overall majority than in previous elections. The law has been branded as the “most proportional” one in recent history being both “fairer” as well as “guaranteeing” a stable government. That’s what PASOK thought anyway when they voted it while they were in government 4 years ago (according to the Greek constitution, any change in the election law doesn’t take effect in the next election, but the one after that, unless it was voted by a majority of 3/5 of the MPs).
Only parties with a national share of the vote of 3% or more can elect MPs. There are 300 MPs in the Greek Parliament. 260 of them will be elected proportionately to their party share of the vote in each of the 56 constituencies. The remaining 40 seats are given to the first party, even if the difference between the first two parties is one vote! Therefore, whether or not the first party can achieve an overall majority depends mainly on two things: (a) its share of the vote, and (b) the share of the vote of all the small parties together who haven’t achieved the minimum of 3% to elect an MP; the larger this share of the vote the lower the “majority benchmark” (151 MPs) becomes for the first party.
According to the new law, the “highest” share of the vote needed by the first party to have a majority is about 42.7%. This is the theoretical scenario where most parties elect MPs and the all small parties together count for no more than 0.5%. A more realistic scenario for Sunday’s election is for 5 parties in parliament with the small parties getting between 2%-3%. In this case, the first party could achieve 151 MPs with a share of the vote of about 41.5%.
If you want to find out what happens on Sunday, all you have to do is log onto SymiGreece where we will be here following the election all night. We will also keep an eye on the result here in Symi to see whether the Mr Papakalodoukas’s statement (the Mayor of Symi) made to a national newspaper yesterday, calling for the people of Symi to vote against those responsible for the lack of a ferry connection with Pireus, will mean an even lower support for the governing ND party than is usually the case in Symi, where PASOK consistently achieves a share of the vote in Symi that is above 50%.
ps. The Horio photos below are two of today's photos. See them all here!
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