Greek voters go to the
polls today in a general election that will decide whether Europe’s
most-indebted country sticks to the economic-overhaul program set out by its
troika of official creditors or tries to chart its own course.
Exit polls will be published at the close of
voting. There will be an initial estimate of the result based on ballots
counted at about 9:30 p.m. and a more accurate estimate before midnight. The
vote count will be available on the Interior Ministry’s website: http://ekloges.ypes.gr/.
Twenty-two parties are standing for
election. They need at least 3 percent of the vote to win seats in the next
parliament and polls indicate that as many as seven will pass that threshold.
Lawmakers are allocated proportionately among the parties that reach the cutoff
and the group with most votes gets an extra 50 seats.
Once sworn in, the new prime minister will
have 15 days to win a confidence vote requiring 151 lawmakers in the 300-seat
parliament. Recent polls suggest neither Syriza nor New Democracy will be able
to do that on their own.
If no
single party has an absolute majority, the president of the republic gives the
leader of the party with the most votes three days to form a government. If he
fails, the three-day mandate is handed to the leader of the second-biggest
party, and finally to the leader of the third party.
If no one can form an administration, the
president will ask party leaders to form a unity government. If that doesn’t
work, as happened in 2012, all parliamentary groups will be asked to join an
interim government to prepare fresh elections. And if that fails the job of
organizing a new vote falls to either the head of the Council of State or the
Supreme Court.
