Greek leftists Syriza aim for historic election win

Greeks vote on Sunday in a historic election expected to bring in a government led by the leftwing Syriza party, which has promised to take on international lenders and roll back painful austerity measures imposed during years of economic crisis. Barring a huge upset, victory for Syriza, which has led opinion polls for months, would produce the first euro zone government openly committed to cancelling the austerity terms of its EU and IMF-backed bailout programme. A Syriza win would represent another turning point for Europe after last week’s announcement by the European Central Bank of a massive injection of cash into the bloc’s flagging economy after years of trying to clamp down on budgets and pushing countries to pass structural reforms.

We are voting for Alexis Tsipras to put an end to this misery. Enough is enough! We won’t let them destroy our children.

Stavroula Gourdourou, an unemployed mother who will vote for Syriza for the first time

While Syriza is expected to form the biggest group in the 300-seat parliament, it is unclear if it will be able to govern alone or have to form a coalition with one or more of the smaller parties. Final polls on Friday gave the party led by 40-year-old Alexis Tsipras a lead of up to 6.7 points with 31.2 to 33.4 percent of the vote, close to the level needed for an outright victory. Three out of four polls showed Syriza widening the gap over the centre-right New Democracy party of Prime Minister Antonis Samara. Syriza would need around 40 per cent of the vote to be guaranteed a majority but it could win with less depending on how well other parties perform. If not, it may need to form a coalition with a small party such as the centrist To Potami, the center-left PASOK or the anti-bailout Independent Greeks or form a minority government, relying on ad hoc support from other parties.

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