Fair elections and authoritarianism

Those who say honest elections are an important factor in their country development or in they own lives, are not necessarily committed to democratic values. And vice versa

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Data from World Values Survey Wave 6 (2010-2014)

Greek elections & challenges

   According to the preliminary results, the left-radical party SYRIZA won the parliamentary elections in Greece. The voting results are very close to the forecast made on the basis of polls (see bar charts). SYRIZA won 10% more votes than in 2012, and will get 149 (vs 71 previously) seats in the new Parliament of Greece which does not provide it with the majority directly, but makes it easy to form the majority in the coalition.

   The main message of SYRIZA in the elections was a rejection of austerity measures imposed on Greece by European Union and the so-called "Troika". At the same time, the leader of SYRIZA Alexis Tsipras confirmed his commitment to this course immediately after the elections, but also stated the absence of intent to declare a default or to leave the Eurozone.

   Broad support of SYRIZA's political platform in Greek society is not surprising. It can be seen that so-called "policy of tightening belts" simply did not work (despite the improved current account), so why should it be continued, and why not to try something different? It should be also noted, that Alexis Tsipras paid attention to the most important current challenges (see the data from Fragile state Index on radar chart below) such as high level of unemployment and poverty, slow economic growth, low level of public trust in the government (due to the fact that the previous government was supported by EU-IMF austerity measures), external enforcements, tight credit conditions, weak banking system, relatively high tax level and weak overall business environment. For that matter, SYRIZA's political platform looks not only like populist one. In fact, it is highly sophisticated, well-designed and based on current economic situation.

Is Grexit really possible? Poll data and greek elections forecast

   On Sunday Jan 25, the parliamentary elections in Greece will take place. Today the Greek political field consist mainly of all shades of red and brown, and some recent polls shows the left-radical party SYRIZA may get the majority (151) of seats in parliament in a result of the upcoming elections. However, every poll has a margin of error, and individual poll results can be outliers. To make more reasonable estimate, it is better to use average data from all surveys conducted from January 1 by different polling firms that were collected on this Wiki page.

According to the forecast, most likely, SYRIZA will get 146 seats in parliament, which would not give it an absolute majority, but will give an opportunity to get a majority in coalition with some of the smaller parties.

   Such a possibility worries observers who fear a sharp reversal of Greek policy towards rejection of the Euro currency and exit from the European Union (so called Grexit), despite the fact that SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras recently stated that it has no such plans.