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Greeks Vote in Election Seen as Referendum on Austerity Anti-Austerity Party Appears Poised to Win Greek Elections
(about 3 hours later)
ATHENS — Greeks streamed to the polls on Sunday in a pivotal election that was expected to usher in the first anti-austerity government in Europe, reflecting years of economic hardship, raising questions about Greece’s place in the continent’s currency union and leaving financial markets on edge. ATHENS — Bluntly rejecting the punishing economics of austerity, Greece on Sunday appeared poised to send a warning signal to the rest of Europe as exit polls showed the left-wing, anti-austerity Syriza party with a strong lead in national elections as the party’s tough-talking, charismatic leader, Alexis Tsipras, seemed certain to become the country’s next prime minister.
The left-wing Syriza party, led by a young firebrand, Alexis Tsipras, reached election day with small but consistent leads over the governing center-right New Democracy party of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in pre-election opinion polls as people stood in lines to vote across the nation. Exit polls, released on national television after voting stations closed at 7 p.m., showed that Syriza was running , far ahead of the governing New Democracy Party of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, and could end up witha strong plurality in the multiparty race. It remained unclear whether Syriza would be able to win an outright parliamentary majority, or if it would have to form a coalition with one or more of the trailing parties.
“Democracy will return to Greece,” Mr. Tsipras, 40, said as he cast his ballot at an Athens voting center, surrounded by a phalanx of cameras. “The message is that our common future in Europe is not the future of austerity.” Syriza’s victory, if expected, would represent a dramatic milestone at a moment when Europe’s continuing economic crisis has stirred an angry, populist backlash from France to Spain to Italy. Syriza would become the first anti-austerity party to take power in a eurozone country. Syriza has also shattered the two-party political establishment that has dominated Greece for four decades.
After years of belt-tightening imposed by Greece’s creditors, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Mr. Tsipras has surged to popularity with pledges to repudiate many of the conditions attached to a bailout worth 240 billion euro, or about $270 billion, that many Greeks blame for worsening their lives and deepening an already devastating five-year recession. “Democracy will return to Greece,” said Mr. Tsipras, 40, speaking to a swarm of reporters and photographers, as he cast his ballot at an Athens voting station. “The message is that our common future in Europe is not the future of austerity.”
Mr. Tsipras has also demanded that creditors write down at least half of Greece’s public debt of 319 billion euro, or about $357 billion, to give the country more breathing room for spending stimulus that he says is needed to jump-start the economy and reduce Greece’s 25 percent unemployment rate. Youthful, with a seemingly unflappable demeanor, Mr. Tsipras has worked diligently to soften his image as an anti-Europe radical, joking that his opponents had accused him of everything except stealing other men’s wives. On the campaign trail, he has promised to clean up Greece’s corrupt political system, reform the country’s public administration and reduce the tax burden on the middle class while cracking down on tax evasion by the country’s oligarchical business class.
Such talk has lifted leftist and populist parties elsewhere in Europe, especially in Spain, where the left-leaning anti-austerity Podemos party, which is less than a year old, has already reached 20 percent in opinion polls there. The leader of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, joined Mr. Tsipras this week during Syriza’s campaign rally. Both have burst into the limelight with pledges to face down austerity and their nation’s creditors. But his biggest promise has been his pledge to force Greece’s creditors, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, to renegotiate the punishing terms of the country’s $240 billion financial bailout. Wracked by punitive, belt-tightening policies, Greece has endured a historic collapse since the 2009 economic crisis, as economic output has shrunk by 25 percent and unemployment still hovers at roughly 26 percent.
Those same pledges, however, have spooked financial markets and other European governments, renewing doubts about Greece’s ability to exit a financial crisis that has weighed down the country as well as its neighbors, many of which have given Greece loans to help it get back on its feet. Mrs. Merkel and others have said they see Mr. Tsipras’s demands as unrealistic and rife with the potential to drive Greece toward the brink of a default or worse. “He is campaigning on change and the end of austerity,” said Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, who argues that Mr. Tsipras must move toward a more centrist stance if he hopes to revive the economy and keep Greek solvent.
Similar concerns were on the minds of average Greeks, many of whom were still undecided Sunday morning on whom to choose. Even those who thought Mr. Tsipras would win power, either alone or in a coalition with one or more other opposition parties, worried about what he would do when he got it. “If he can pull that off, that will be the best possible outcome for Greece and for Europe, because it would show that these protests movements ultimately recognize reality, which is that they are in the euro, and they have to play by the rules,” he added.
In the wealthy Athens suburb of Psychiko, Betty Kaleki, 45, and Polly Katsouli, 46, stood outside a crowded school trying to figure out which candidate they would pick. Both were leaning toward an upstart leftist party, Potami, or the River, started up less than a year ago by a former television journalist. Mr. Tsipras will face immediate challenges. Greece is still waiting for a 7 billion euro bailout payment that Athens needs to keep the state running and to pay off billions in debt obligations due in the coming months. He has also demanded that creditors write down at least half of Greece’s 319 billion euro public debt in order to give the country more breathing room for a spending stimulus that he says could enliven the economy and slash unemployment.
“I’m not happy, I’m afraid,” Ms. Kaleki said. “If Syriza comes to power, I don’t know what will happen tomorrow.” A Syriza victory would be certain to lift euroskeptic parties elsewhere in Europe, especially in Spain, where the left-leaning, anti-austerity Podemos party, not yet a year old, is already polling at 20 percent in national polls. The leader of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, joined Mr. Tsipras this week during Syriza’s final campaign rally.
Ms. Katsouli said she did not think a catastrophe would come. “I just heard Tsipras on the radio this morning — he is already speaking like he’s the prime minister,” she said. She added that her biggest fear was about the coterie of academic economic advisers with whom he has surrounded himself, many of whom are split on how to take the economy forward and deal with Greece’s creditors. “What the whole debate about Greece and Syriza highlights is that voter anxieties, voter resentment, and electoral disillusionment over austerity policies can be expressed at the ballot,” said Jens Bastian, an Athens-based economic consultant and a former member of the European Commission’s task force on Greece. “The example of Greece today may become a precursor to what happens in other countries like Spain, Portugal or Italy.”
She was concerned that some of his advisers on the far left are too radical and unpredictable, said Ms. Katsouli, who was split on whether to vote for Potami or for Mr. Samaras, whom many Greeks blame for imposing austerity. The closer she got to the voting booth, the more she edged toward Potami. Mr. Tsipras has said he wants to negotiate directly with Mrs. Merkel and other European leaders to reduce Greece’s debt burden, even as some officials have characterized Mr. Tsipras’s demands as unrealistic and rife with the potential to drive Greece toward the brink of default — or even outside the eurozone.
Mr. Samaras, who oversaw the efforts to carry out an austerity program demanded by Greece’s so-called Troika of lenders — the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund — has warned that a Syriza-led government could wind up driving Greece outside the eurozone. While few people think that will really happen, Mr. Samaras used a photo opportunity as he cast his ballot Sunday morning to drive home the point. Earlier concerns that a Syriza-led Greece would exit the common currency have been fading, but Mr. Tsipras’s confrontational stance on renegotiating the bailout could create the equivalent of a game of chicken with Greece’s creditors to see who blinks first. Mr. Tsipras has insisted he will not adhere to the bailout’s austerity conditions; Greece’s creditors insist they will not disburse funds unless he does.
“Today we decide if we move ahead with power, safety and confidence or if we head into an adventure,” Mr. Samaras said. “I am optimistic because I believe no one will risk the European course of our country.” Mr. Tsipras has pledged immediate action, including restoring electricity to poor families who have lost services for unpaid bills. He has promised to raise the minimum wage to 751 euros a month from 586 euros a month for all workers; restore collective bargaining agreements; prohibit mass layoffs; and create 300,000 jobs.
Some people were not convinced. Wearing a blue suit, a tall silver-haired man who would give only his first name, Vassilis, said he felt angry at the current government and the two main parties, New Democracy and Pasok, which had led Greece for nearly 40 years. “I’m 80, and I’ve lived through the German occupation,” he said as he stood in a line to vote. The governing parties “are traitors and should be ousted,” he said. Out on the streets of Athens, voters expressed a range of emotions, from anger to betrayal to fear to even hope. One woman, dressed in a long coat, said she had voted for Syriza because the current Greek government, led by New Democracy, had “transformed me from a lady into a poor woman.”
Vassilis said he used to vote for New Democracy but now planned to vote for the Independent Greeks, a fringe party, saying he did not agree with all of Mr. Tsipras’s positions. The austerity program overseen by Mr. Samaras, including a reduction in Vassilis’s pension and new housing taxes, had driven him into dire financial straits, he said. “I need to work just for a plate of food.” “I voted for Syriza because Samaras betrayed the party and the country,” said the woman, who only gave her first name, Eugenia, 76, a pensioner who once supported New Democracy and Mr. Samaras. “I’m doing this for my two children who had to leave and work abroad and for all of the young Greeks who hold degrees and have to work as waiters for 300 euros.”
Christina Polychronidou, 39, came to the same place with her husband and young daughter to vote. She would not reveal her choice, but, she added, it would not matter much anyway. “Nothing will change,” she said. “Tsipras will stay on the same course that Samaras did. If you have Merkel against you it’s very tough to change.” At a polling station in Mets, a middle-class district near central Athens, Achilleas Mandrakis, 47, runs a garage but said he was struggling to stay afloat after his wife lost her job at a show store. “I always voted New Democracy, and I never trusted the leftists,” he said. “But enough is enough, really. We kept given them a chance, but they messed up. They’ve made our lives miserable.” Mr. Mandrakis added, “at least a different party might change something in this mess, anything.”
Still, Mr. Tsipras has strong support. Zoe Makrigianni, 19, an Athens resident, voted for Syriza and blamed scaremongering for the attacks against Mr. Tsipras. “People hear that Tsipras is scary or that he will not make a difference,” she said, adding, “I think he will prove them wrong.”