Greece 2012

[Yelnoc]

I wonder what will happen if ND and PASOK form another coalition?  If I were Greek I would scream bloody murder.

[Yelnoc]

Averaging out the three extant polls for a June election, from MARC on May 10, KAPA RESEARCH on May 12, and METRON ANALYSIS on May 12, we get:

Vote:
SYRIZA 24.6%
ND 20.0%
PASOK 13.1%
ANEL 9.7%
KKE 6.3%
XA 5.4%
DIMAR 5.1%
Greens 2.2%
LAOS 2.1%
DX 1.8%
DISY 1.7%
DRASI 1.5%
Other 6.5%

Seats:
SYRIZA 123 (+71)
ND 59 (-49)
PASOK 39 (-2)
ANEL 29 (-4)
KKE 19 (-7)
XA 16 (-5)
DIMAR 15 (-4)

After seeing its vote decline by 15% but nevertheless gaining 17 seats in the 6 May election, ND gains 1 percentage point somehow but nevertheless loses 49 seats. Oh you 50-seat bonus...

Actually Syriza will not get the 50 seat bonus unless they manage to merge their coalition into one party.  They are legally a coalition, and thus inelgible, so even if they placed first in the popular vote and ND second, ND would get the 50 seat bonus (assuming, again, that they are still a coalition).  I would hope that would be enough to spark major riots.

[Yelnoc]

Syriza would still get the fifty seat bonus; they're a "party" for the purposes of electoral law as long as Syriza's leader declares it to be so to the electoral commission.

Edit- and even if they didn't for some reason do so, the fifty seat bonus wouldn't apply and all 300 seats would be allocated proportionally IIRC; it wouldn't go to ND.

Are you sure about that?  I got my info from a Greek poster on another forum.

[Yelnoc]

Syriza would still get the fifty seat bonus; they're a "party" for the purposes of electoral law as long as Syriza's leader declares it to be so to the electoral commission.

Edit- and even if they didn't for some reason do so, the fifty seat bonus wouldn't apply and all 300 seats would be allocated proportionally IIRC; it wouldn't go to ND.

Are you sure about that?  I got my info from a Greek poster on another forum.

I don't remember my initial source, but here's confirmation of my interpretation by our forum's own Greek poster:

I don't know where you got that info from but I'm 99.9% sure Syriza in first place would still get the bonus.

Indeed. This part of the law is blatantly unconstitutional and our supreme court has already endorsed a VERY lax enforcement of the law.
Essentially a signed statement by a party's leader declaring that it's a single party and not a coalition is enough.

Ok, well this is where I got it from.  If you have an account on ah.com read the thread; it's very informative.

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[Yelnoc]

Is it true that the Independent Greeks are making war reparations from Germany a condition of any coalition?

Yes.

Has this been a political issue in Greece before all the troubles started?

Otherwise it's just seems a bit too contrived. "Ah, well, we've got major economic problems now and desperately need some money. Luckily, there was this war 70 years ago we never got any reparations for, so maybe we'll go with this one."

I thought Germany gave Greece a lump sum of money in 1960 or thereabouts.