Greece parliamentary election - September 20, 2015

[Zanas]

25 Syriza MPs defect to create a new movement called "Popular Unity". Konstantopolou and Varoufakis didn't join them, for the moment at least. That makes it the third largest parliamentary group.

[Zanas]

As a far left-winger, I can assure you that internal democracy in our kinds of organizations are never all the hype they are made to be... More often than not, a leader can expel whoever he wants and get away with it even if he controls only a small portion of the party. Democracy doesn't quite work, you see.

[Zanas]

For what it's worth, one poll has the following results :

Syriza 24
ND 22
XA 6
Potami 5.5
Pasok, KKE, LAE 4.5
EK 4
Anel 3.5
Others 5

That would put Syriza around 110-115 seats, not anywhere near a majority, and in need for probably 2, possibly 3, coalition partners, if we exclude ND.

[Zanas]

Another poll :

Syriza 23
ND 19.5
XA 6.5
KKE 5
Pasok 4.5
Potami 4
LAE 3.5
EK 3
Anel 2
Others 3.5
Undecided 25.5

Well that's underwhelming for pretty much everybody.

[Zanas]

If ND wins, and it seems likelier every day, the "left-wing parenthesis" will have worked, albeit a bit longer than they had expected in last December. Depressing, yet very enlightening on what to expect from all the actors on stage (ie. not much).

[Zanas]

If ND wins, and it seems likelier every day, the "left-wing parenthesis" will have worked, albeit a bit longer than they had expected in last December. Depressing, yet very enlightening on what to expect from all the actors on stage (ie. not much).

Well, the Syria project never made much sense unless they were willing to take a chance and see if an actual Socialist society could work in 2015. They seemed never really to believe in their own ideology and instead relying on pure populism and extortion tactics. But that is likely the status of the modern far left in Europe. I wonder how many of them would actually try implementing their own platform if they got the chance.

Ironically, maybe the KKE would. Not necessarily for the best, though, even in my eyes...

Tsipras says he's open to cooperation with Pasok. Just without Venizelos and a few others.

RIP Syriza
RIP Greece
RIP politics.

[Zanas]

If ND wins, and it seems likelier every day, the "left-wing parenthesis" will have worked, albeit a bit longer than they had expected in last December. Depressing, yet very enlightening on what to expect from all the actors on stage (ie. not much).

Well, the Syria project never made much sense unless they were willing to take a chance and see if an actual Socialist society could work in 2015. They seemed never really to believe in their own ideology and instead relying on pure populism and extortion tactics. But that is likely the status of the modern far left in Europe. I wonder how many of them would actually try implementing their own platform if they got the chance.

Ironically, maybe the KKE would. Not necessarily for the best, though, even in my eyes...

Tsipras says he's open to cooperation with Pasok. Just without Venizelos and a few others.

RIP Syriza
RIP Greece
RIP politics.

[Zanas]

If ND wins, and it seems likelier every day, the "left-wing parenthesis" will have worked, albeit a bit longer than they had expected in last December. Depressing, yet very enlightening on what to expect from all the actors on stage (ie. not much).

Well, the Syria project never made much sense unless they were willing to take a chance and see if an actual Socialist society could work in 2015. They seemed never really to believe in their own ideology and instead relying on pure populism and extortion tactics. But that is likely the status of the modern far left in Europe. I wonder how many of them would actually try implementing their own platform if they got the chance.

Ironically, maybe the KKE would. Not necessarily for the best, though, even in my eyes...

Tsipras says he's open to cooperation with Pasok. Just without Venizelos and a few others.

RIP Syriza
RIP Greece
RIP politics.

[Zanas]

A bunch of polls keep coming in nearly every day. By averaging all of them, we could get somewhat of a precise picture of what's going on. I'll try to compile them when I have a moment. The general picture is :

Syriza-ND basically tied around 26-27%
XA 3d, but around 6%
Pasok, Potami, KKE around 5-5.5%
EK not further down around 4.5-5%
LAE between 3.5 and 6%, probably the most difficult to poll right now.
Anel not making it to 3% or barely.

[Zanas]

I'm wondering if the immigration crisis may well propel Golden Dawn to hit 7.5-9%

If I were a Greek, I would, at this point, primarily be motivated , in this respect, by the need to keep the borders maximally open. Greece is still not guaranteed to be within EU 5 years from now, nor are Greeks likely to be treated any better than Syrians if they are kicked out - and, gosh, will they want to be able to go to Germany if that happens.

If I were Greek at this point, I think I would try to ship as many refugees as I can to the rump of the EU, just, you know, to piss them off, that'll teach them.

[Zanas]

Wow, LAE really fell flat, didn't it?

Well yeah, nobody's really adventurous. They're slowly picking up though, as more urban areas are coming in, I guess. It's not completely impossible they'll end up barely above the 3% threshold.

[Zanas]

So Syriza is clearly overperforming, and seems to be ending with 7 pts more than ND, give or take. ND has already conceded defeat. Syriza is looking at 144 seats right now, not too shabby. It could allow them to form a coalition with only Potami, who has dramatically fallen by the way. This would avoid the Pasok catastrophe.

[Zanas]

So at the end of the day, the results look almost identical to January. The only major difference is that SYRIZA got rid of its left-wing.

Why did Potami lose so much, BTW? You'd have thought Tsipras' acceptance of austerity would have proved them right.

Well, I've heard that getting rid of LAE actually could help Syriza recover on its centre-left and become a classic big-tent centre-left party. Potami voters seem to have thought that way.

Anyway, anti-austerity MPs are now reduced to fascists and stalinists. Good call...

[Zanas]

Wasn't KKE supposed to surge?

KKE doesn't do the "surging" or the "plummetting" thing. They just... are stable, at 5 to 5.5, always, at any time.

[Zanas]

LAE are more or less back to the 3.3% that... Syriza obtained in the 2004 legislative election. Syriza was then led by Nikos Konstantopoulos. Yes, the father. O tempora, o mores.