Greece's socialists have won a strong parliamentary majority over the governing conservatives, according to exit polls from Sunday's (4 October) general election in the country. The centre-left Panhellenic Socialist Movement, or Pasok, of leader George Papandreou, is leading according to the polls, with 43 percent of the vote, giving the party 159 seats in the 300-seat chamber.
The centre-right New Democracy of Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, which had called a snap election only two years after his 2007 election win, had hoped to give a boost to his faltering government with its one-seat majority. His gamble did not pay off, however, with his conservatives gaining the support of just 34 percent of voters, translating into 94 seats.
Mr Karamanlis' party had been hit by a series of corruption scandals, the economic crisis and was widely viewed as having badly handled a series of natural disasters. Moreover, the election offered a clear choice between Pasok and New Democracy.
The former promised a €3 billion stimulus package that would include above-inflation wage and pension increases, higher taxes for the wealthy and a review of the privatisation of flag carrier Olympic Airlines and the sale of the government's stake in OTE, the telecoms firm. Meanwhile New Democracy campaigned on promises of wage and pension freezes for government employees and further austerity and cutting of social programmes in order to tackle the country's deficit, already twice the European Union's allowed maximum of three percent of GDP.
Despite the convincing victory, recent polls have shown that as many as nine out of 10 Greeks do not trust either party, and abstentions were also high amongst the young, who analysts worry are turning their back on parliamentary politics. Last December, the country was rocked by violent youth riots that lasted three weeks in what was described at the time as the worst unrest to hit Greece since the restoration of democracy in 1974.
Euobserver
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