Stay or go? Greece to decide economic future in Sunday election

Greece began voting Sunday in a crucial general election that could bring its anti-austerity party to power and lead to a re-negotiation of the country’s international bailout. The Syriza party, led by 40-year-old Alexis Tsipras, leads the incumbent conservative New Democracy party by around four points, according to pre-election opinion polls. Some 9.8 million people are eligible to vote. The poll’s closure will be followed immediately by the results of exit polls. Tsipras wants to renegotiate Greece’s massive $356 billion debt and end the wage cuts and public spending reductions linked to its bailout by the European Union and International Monetary Fund. The possibility of a victory for the radical left-wing party has sparked fears that Greece could default on its debt repayments and quit the group of 19 countries using the single European currency - a so-called “Grexit.”

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

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