Well people, here are the final results for yesterday’s election here in sunny Greece:
New Democracy (Nea Dimokratia) 129 seats (includes the 50 seats bonus for taking the largest percentage of the vote) 29.66%
Union of Radical Left (Si.Riz.A) 71 seats 26.89%
Pan Hellenic Socialist Movement (Pa.So.K) 33 seats 12.28%
Independent Greeks (Aneksartiti Ellines) 20 seats 7.51%
Golden Dawn (Hrisi Avgi) 18 seats 6.92%
Democratic Left (Dimokratiki Aristera) 17 seats 6.26%
Communist Party of Greece (K.K.E.) 12 seats 4.5%
5.98% went to the remaining 7 parties
0.99% of the votes cast were invalid or intentionally left blank
And the winners, with 37.53%, were the 3,734,974 registered voters that did not bother voting!
New Democracy and PaSoK, being the two parties that have ruled Greece (read sucked Greece dry) interchangeably since 1975 are busily sharing out Ministries amongst themselves. Together they have 159 of the 300 seats available. It looks like Dimokratiki Aristera will also vie for a piece of the pie and share power with the other two parties. I imagine it depends on what positions are offered to them. The leader of Dimokratiki Aristera, Fotis Kouvelis, was a member of the Si.Riz.A but left when they did not give him the presidency of the union. If he enters into negotiations with New Democracy and PaSoK (the two parties which, along with the support of the party Popular Orthodox Rally (La.O.S.), voted in favor of the neo-liberal memorandum which has destroyed Greece) he will lose many supporters from within his party, many of which will probably return to Si.Riz.A.
So how long will this government last? Depends on if they continue to apply the memorandums or not. Both New Democracy and PaSoK promised their voters that they would renegotiate the terms of the memorandum. The question is will the IMF and the German government accept a renegotiation? Unlikely!
This cartoon from the Spanish press sums up the situation perfectly:
- Who won - Spanish cartoon.jpg (20.9 KiB) Viewed 3206 times