Elections in Greece: The people are not interested, dirty games instead of arguments
The pre-election campaign in Greece is entering its final phase, but voters are not very interested. In the last elections in 2019, the turnout was below 58 percent, and on Sunday, May 21, it could be even lower.
Greece is facing new elections, but as things stand for now, the people don't seem to care about them. There are many reasons for such a general attitude, but the prevailing thesis is that "all politicians are the same", as well as that they all reach for dirty games rather than arguments.
Public debate has been dominated by scandals and fake news for months, reports Deutsche Welle. Citizens want stability and some normalcy. On the other hand, the energy, debt, refugee, and pandemic crises also bothered them.
That everything is over their heads is also confirmed by their colorful answers in surveys to a simple question: "Which word best describes your expectations for the future of the country?".
The words "resignation/frustration" were chosen by 42,7 percent of respondents, followed by "anger" (40,7%). Only 13 percent of them chose the word "trust". Polls show that citizens have little confidence in the conservative government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, and even less in the main opposition party of former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.
In all polls, the ruling conservative New Democracy (ND) has a more or less narrow lead. Depending on the survey, ND has between 29 and 32 percent of support, and Tsipras's opposition Syriza, a coalition of the radical left, 24 to 27 percent. In third place is the socialist PASOK with 8,5 to 11 percent, followed by the KKE (communists) with 5,5 to 7 percent and the MeRA 25 (DiEM25) party of former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis with 3,5 to 4,5 percent of support.
At the bottom of the list are two far-right parties: "The Greek Solution" (Hellenic Lysi), a party similar to the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD), as well as a successor party to the neo-Nazi party. Both have the support of around three percent of voters. Ten percent of citizens are still undecided. The electoral threshold for entering the parliament in Greece is three percent.
Unless the polls are wrong, which has happened several times in recent years, the prospects for forming a government after the election are very limited. Probably no party will be able to govern alone and a coalition will have to be formed.
Prime Minister Mitsotakis has made it clear that he does not want that. That is why he is counting on a second round of voting, which is conducted according to a different system. Syriza, on the other hand, wants to try to form a so-called "progressive coalition". Their leader Tsipras would govern together with the social democrats from PASOK, but those two parties would have to win 151 out of 300 seats in the parliament. That is unlikely at this point.
The new democracy is already warning of "chaos" if it does not remain in power. With the election slogan "Stability - Courage - Forward", party leader Mikotakis is trying to convince voters that he is the right person for the economic success of the country. It promises higher wages, a functioning state and a better health system.
However, the people were most disappointed in the government after the terrible train accident at the beginning of March this year, when at least 57 people died and hundreds were injured. Another minus for the government is the absolute deadlock in the investigation into the wiretapping affair. The government was only able to alleviate this with the wholehearted help of the strongly pro-government media. Only the European Parliament, a few journalists and Nikos Androlakis, the leader of PASOK, who was the most famous victim of wiretapping, still insist on clarifying the affair.
In any case, the time to influence the people is getting shorter, and polls show that the question is how many citizens will turn out for the elections on May 21st.
I.D./Deutsche Welle
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