Greek election - January 25th 2015

[Insula Dei]

How's SYRIZA supposed to form a coalition if both Papandreou and PASOK fail to get in? Potami?

Though I guess that in most scenarios where that happens, SYRIZA will be hovering on the edge of a majority anyway.

[Insula Dei]

ECR is a very mixed bag of right wing populists, libertarians, National Conservatives and mainstream Conservatives like the Tories and Fianna Fail. You can not deduce anything about ANEL from their membership of this apart from the party being right wing and not Neo-Nazi.

It stretches from Fianna Fail and Tories over AfD, DPP/True Finns in Scandinavia to Croatian Party of Rights dr. Ante Starčević.

It's basically the kids noone wants to play with going off to another playground of their own.

[Insula Dei]

A few more polls from the biggest districts:

Athens A (14 seats)
SYRIZA 33.12
ND 25.5
KKE 4.08
PASOK 3.8
GD 3.66
Potami 3.29
ANEL 2.49
DIMAR 1.36
Papandreou 0.23
Other 0.09

Athens A (the city of Athens) is a little more conservative and more affluent, so this a little surprising.  ND had actually won this district in 2012.

Athens B (44 seats)
SYRIZA 33.18
ND 19.37
KKE 3.11
GD 2.86
ANEL 2.74
PASOK 2.66
Potami 2.16
Papandreou 1.3
LAOS 1.23
Other 0.52

Athens B is more working class and it was the best SYRIZA district in 2012 and also the biggest in the country (by far).

Thessaloniki A (16 seats)
SYRIZA 35.31
ND 20.19
GD 6.11
ANEL 5.83
PASOK 4.71
KKE 4.49
Potami 2.43
LAOS 0.82
Papandreou 0.6
Greens 0.52 (running with SYRIZA)
Other 4.45

Thessaloniki B (9 seats)
SYRIZA 34.17
ND 23.93
GD 6.95
ANEL 5.8
Potami 3.25
KKE 2.86
LAOS 1.95
Papandreou 0.72
PASOK 0.72
Other 1.16

The Thessaloniki results are quite interesting because they (as well as most of Macedonia and Thrace) usually vote more conservative since they're more concerned with national security issues.  ND had actually won Thessaloniki in 2012.

By the way, I found some interesting pictures that I thought you might want to see:
This is an old picture of Samaras and Kammenos (ANEL leader) from when they were still close:


And this is a picture from the wedding of Makis Voridis:

The best man at his wedding was Carl Lang (he is the man to the right of Voridis) a former FN MEP and the current leader of the far-right Party of France.

Makis 'The Hammer' Voridis.

[Insula Dei]

I'm actually surprised noone has mentioned the very low turnout yet. At 58%, it's down 4 points on June 2012, which already was pretty low in a country where prior to the crisis elections would generally have turnout in the mid-70s.

EDIT: Scratch that - The turnout figures on the official results page seems to be only about votes already counted and continue to shift.

[Insula Dei]

Where's everyone getting official results? Interior's website is still blank.

http://ekloges.ypes.gr/current/v/public/index.html?lang=en#{%22cls%22:%22main%22,%22params%22:{}}

It is showing results to me.

[Insula Dei]

PASOK in single digits everywhere except Laconia (Sparta!)

Laconia is also where XA has its highest percentage at the moment.

Like half the party leadership hails from the Mani.

[Insula Dei]

Syriza has made it rather clear they're not interested in governing alongside anyone else. Besides, could you imagine Venizelos as Finance minister under Tsipras?

[Insula Dei]

A minority government only works if at least one of the parties agrees to vote with SYRIZA on confidence motions though, right?

I can't imagine KKE, for example, would be overly eager to bring down a Syriza government. If Syriza is at 148ish seats, they'd just have to limit defections to a minimum and they'd be fine for the first few weeks to months, I'd say.

[Insula Dei]

SYRIZA at 149 seats.

Inching towards 150/151 at this rate, I'd say.

[Insula Dei]

Tsipras may prefer 149/150 over 151/152. With the latter you give significant power to individual members of your party who are willing to make demands...

That's just as much the was in a minority government situation as with a 1 or 2-seat majority, tho.