Alexis Tsipras’s Syriza brushed aside Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s party to record a landslide victory in Greece’s elections, after riding a public backlash against years of budget cuts demanded by international creditors, exit polls showed.
Tsipras’s Coalition of the Radical Left, known by its Greek acronym, took between 36 percent and 38 percent compared with 26 percent to 28 percent for Samaras’s New Democracy in Sunday’s election, according to an exit poll on state-run Nerit TV showed. To Potami, formed less than a year ago and a potential Syriza coalition partner, tied for third place with the far-right Golden Dawn on 6 percent to 7 percent.
The projected victory, by a wider margin than polls predicted, may be enough for Syriza to govern alone. It hands Tsipras, 40, an overwhelming mandate to confront Greece’s program of austerity imposed in return for pledges of 240 billion euros ($269 billion) in aid since May 2010. The challenge for him now is to strike a balance between keeping his election pledges including a writedown of Greek debt and avoiding what Samaras repeatedly warned was the risk of an accidental exit from the euro.
Syriza, in a statement read out by a party official, said the victory was “historic” and one that represented hope.
Antonis Samaras, Greece's prime minister, arrives to cast his vote for the Greek elections at a polling station in the town of Pylos, west of Athens, Greece, on Jan. 25, 2015. Close
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Antonis Samaras, Greece's prime minister, arrives to cast his vote for the Greek elections at a polling station in the town of Pylos, west of Athens, Greece, on Jan. 25, 2015.
“Overwhelmingly the Greek people voted against austerity policies,” the party said. “This result can be the first step for progressive developments throughout Europe. The government will implement its political program addressing the humanitarian crisis and begin the real negotiation with our European partners.”
Had Enough
Syriza’s victory as predicted in updated projections -- if confirmed by official results -- sends a signal to parties challenging economic and political conventions across Europe from a country whose output has shrunk by about a quarter and where one in two young people is jobless.
Investors must now wait for Tsipras to spell out how he plans to negotiate Greece’s future financing needs. An extension of the current euro-area-backed bailout program expires at the end of February, with Greece projected to run out of money by July at the latest.
The market response to Syriza’s growing lead in opinion polls last week in the run-up to the election was muted. Bonds and stocks rallied in Athens on Friday, the day after Mario Draghi announced the European Central Bank’s new bond-buying program.
Euro-Area Warnings
European policy makers including German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and his Dutch counterpart, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, warned Greece against diverting from its agreed bailout program. Finance ministers from the 19 countries that share the euro are due to discuss Greece when they meet in Brussels on Monday. Germany’s Finance Minister said in a statement that Schaeuble’s position was unchanged after the result and “the agreements reached with Greece remain valid.”
A voter casts his ballot at a polling station in the town of Pylos, Greece this morning.
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A voter casts his ballot at a polling station in the town of Pylos, Greece this morning.
The election ends more than four decades of rule by New Democracy or Pasok, the two parties that have alternated in power since the reintroduction of democracy in 1974 following a seven-year period of military dictatorship.
“The Greek people punished New Democracy for governing in the petty manner of the old regime’s political parties,” Aristides Hatzis, an associate professor of law and economics at the University of Athens, said by phone. “Most Greeks voting Syriza don’t expect a spectacular change but a marginal one. A marginal one would be significant for them.”
Parliamentary Seats
The results translate into between 148 and 154 Syriza lawmakers in the 300-seat Parliament. An earlier projection showed New Democracy returning between 65 and 75 lawmakers and To Potami taking 17 to 22 seats.
Pasok, which won the 2009 election under George Papandreou before he was forced to request an international aid package in April 2010, took at most 5.2 percent, or 12 to 15 seats, according to the exit poll. Papandreou, who was ousted as prime minister in late 2011, must wait to see if the new party he founded this month, the Movement of Democratic Socialists, will cross the 3 percent threshold to win seats.
An initial projection of the result based on partially counted ballots will be released at about 9:30 p.m. in Athens.
Syriza lawmaker Stavros Kontonis said in an interview that the result represented “a clear mandate to Syriza for renegotiating Greek debt, the implementation of a radical program and governmental stability.”
“We are fully aware of our historic responsibility,” Kontonis said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Eleni Chrepa in Athens at echrepa@bloomberg.net; Marcus Bensasson in Athens at mbensasson@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Crawford at acrawford6@bloomberg.net; Jerrold Colten at jcolten@bloomberg.net Rodney Jefferson
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