Greek election - January 25th 2015

[jaichind]

Merkel is turning into SYRIZA's best campaign weapon.  By making a veiled threat that Germany can stand a Grexit and then followed by CDU SPD guys flip flop on that issues Merkel is making it look that she is trying to good cop/bad cop Greece into voting for ND.  Given how popular Germany/Merkel is in Greece this can only hurt ND and help SYRIZA.  I think it is critical that SYRIZA is kept out of power but with stuff like this taking place I am beginning to feel it might not be possible.   Now it is a game of chicken.  A SYRIZA regime will want to renegotiation the terms of debt and  Germany/EU/IMF will want to say no.  If neither side budges then we will have a crash.  I wonder who will blink first.  I bet it will be Germany/EU/IMF.  There is a Chinese saying which goes "If you own someone $1000 he is your Daddy, but if you own someone $1 million then you are his Daddy."  Greece owns so much money it might turn into a weapon they can wield.  Sort of like what Trump did back in the 1990s.

[jaichind]

Tsirapas now rules out cooperating with both Pasok, Potami and MDS and says he prefer to rely on support from KKE if Syriza doesn't get a majority.

LOL, has he checked that with KKE?

I had the same reaction.  It always struck me that KKE is being to sectarian by not willing to back Syriza given their similar ideological outlook on policy.  Perhaps KKE is afraid that its vote base will be swallowed by Syriza if they ally with it ?

[jaichind]

My prediction

SYRIZA    36.3
ND           29.6
River          6.5
KKE           5.6
XA             5.6
PASOK       4.9
ANEL         3.8

[jaichind]

When do polls close and any links to results as they come in ?

[jaichind]

An exit poll will be published by all TV networks at 7 PM. That is the only credible one.

Why 7pm?  I thought the polls close at 6pm?

[jaichind]

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras' conservative New Democracy party is protesting the release of what seems to be voter exit polls before the 7 pm (1700 GMT) close of polling stations.
It calls the publication of the exit polls by internet sites an "unprecedented, lousy action" designed to manipulate voters and asks the Justice Ministry to launch a probe, according to a statement.

This tells me the exit poll is most likely fairly accurate. 

[jaichind]

SYRIZA TO GET 35.5%-39.5% OF VOTE: EXIT POLL

[jaichind]

NEW DEMOCRACY TO GET 23%-27% OF VOTE, 65-75 SEATS: POLL

[jaichind]

SYRIZA TO GET 35.5%-39.5% OF VOTE, 146-158 SEATS: EXIT POLL

[jaichind]

G-Pap not in?

Looks like it.  It seems ANEL did not make it either ?  If so then Syriza will have a majority for sure.

[jaichind]

Looks like ANEL did make it.  In fact Movement of Democratic Socialists is projected to get 2.2% to 3.2% so they still have a chance.

[jaichind]

(Bloomberg) -- Greece’s Syriza party is set to win country’s parliamentary elections with 35.5% to 39.5% of the vote vs 23% to 27% for Antonis Samaras’s New Democracy, exit poll for ANT1 TV shows.
Led by Alexis Tsipras, Syriza is projected to get between 146 and 158 seats in Greece’s 300-seat chamber, according to exit poll, possibly enough for an outright majority
Nationalist, anti-immigrant, Golden Dawn party gets 6.4%-8%
To Potami, or River, also gets 6.4% to 8%
Communist Party gets 4.7% to 5.7%
Socialist Pasok party to get 4.2% to 5.2%
Independent Greeks party gets 3.5% to 4.5%
Movement of Democratic Socialists, founded by former PM George Papandreou, to get 2.2% to 3.2%

[jaichind]

If we go with the medium estimate of the vote shares of all parties in the exit poll then SYRIZA should get around 153 seats.

[jaichind]

SYRIZA  vote share now actually falling.  I guess enough of the Athens vote has come in.

[jaichind]

lol PASOK

Yes.  On the other hand, I think the result is reasonable given the circumstances.  I think if we add the vote shares of KIDISO PASOK and River they add up to be slightly higher than what PASOK got in June 2012.  And this is an election that was supposed to be polarized around SYRIZA and ND.

[jaichind]

Looking at the results so far it seems this election is mostly about DIMAR-Green and ANEL vote from June 2012 going to SYRIZA.  Other than that it is mostly small shifts of the same votes between various similar parties  (like PASOK ->  KIDISO and River)

[jaichind]

It's interesting to see that Muslims have finally moved from PASOK to SYRIZA. SYRIZA's best performance in the country is in Rhodope, where ND won and PASOK finished in second place in June 2012; now the SYRIZA vote has risen from 19.75% to 49.36%, the ND vote has gone from 27.28% to 19.99%, and the PASOK vote has fallen from 20.54% to 3.27%.

Are you sure that is what took place ? DIMAR in June 2012 got 17.8% in Rhodope and now is nothing.  In my view most of PASOK vote went to River which now has around 13% of the vote and pretty much all of DIMAR/Greens from June 2012 went to SYRIZA.  And yes, there is for sure a swing from ND and ANEL to SYRIZA as well.  

[jaichind]

ANEL just overtook PASOK.

[jaichind]

US futures markets down .6%

[jaichind]

Now begins the inevitable clash between the Teutonic troika and people's democracy. My solidarity is with the latter.

I am with the former.

[jaichind]

Now begins the inevitable clash between the Teutonic troika and people's democracy. My solidarity is with the latter.

Why should there be a clash? Greece should be congratulated with, finally, achieving a political decision to leave the euro and the details should be peaceably worked out. Drachma will be reintroduced and rapidly devalued. EU, hopefully, would provide emergency humanitarian support for a few years and then Greece will resume its growth and development from where it had been in the early 1990s. 

Well, the clash is that Greece thinks that by the vote today they can achieve a debt write-down without affecting everything else (being in Euro, access to capital markets etc etc) while those who hold that debt does not see it that way.  We will see who blinks first.  I implore the troika to hold firm and not allow this. 

[jaichind]

SRIYZA is back at 36.36.  Looks like it will 149 seats.

[jaichind]

Athens and Thessaloniki are only the real places where there are significant votes outstanding.  SRYIZA is running around 37% in Athens and 34% in Thessaloniki.  If so I suspect SRYIZA's vote share will hold steady from here and end up around 36.36%

[jaichind]

Anyone have any idea why Teleia did so well ?  It seems this one man party came out of nowhere and got 1.8% of the vote. 

[jaichind]

Why did SYRIZA work out an alliance with ANEL anyway?  Seems to me that anything on their agenda there is at least another party that supports said policy so they can just pass their agenda with support from a different opposition party on a case by case basis.  it would seem to me that the main reason for the alliance with ANEL would be to make sure that the government is rock solid to take on the bailout negotiations which would be tough.