Head of Greece's radical leftist SYRIZA party Alexis Tsipras is seen in a polling station after voting in Athens | Photo: Yorgos Karahalis/Reuters

Greece pro-austerity party expected to win election

Source: Reuters | Safeworld

Greeks returned to the ballot box today for an election that could force Greece out of the eurozone and which experts say could unleash an economic meltdown through the world.

Meanwhile central banks throughout the world especially in Europe have braced themselves to intervene in case of financial turmoil.

Official Projection

The official projection figures for the election have now been announced by Greece's interior ministry. Greek pollster, Marika Lambrou, said this:

'There will be seven parties in the next parliament, as was the case on 6 May.

There will be no upset in the order of the parties but there has been a "considerable increase" in the number of votes for the two leading parties.'

New Democracy will receive 29.53% of the vote, equivalent to 128 seats.
Syriza will receive 27.12% – 72 seats.
Pasok will receive 12.2% – 23 seats.
Independent Greeks will receive 7.56% – 20 seats.
Golden Dawn will receive 6.95% – 18 seats.
Democratic Left will receive 6.23% – 17 seats.
Greek Communist Party will receive 4.47% – 12 seats.

Different Views

This is Greece's second election in just six weeks to try to select a new government after an inconclusive ballot on May 6.

The two parties vying to win have starkly different views about what to do about the €240 billion ($300 billion) in bailout loans that Greece has been given by international lenders. One wants to tear up the deals and void the harsh austerity measures demanded by lenders that have caused Greek living standards to plummet. The other backs the bailout deal but wants to amend it.

The choice — the most critical in decades — could determine whether Greece abandons the joint euro currency used by 17 nations and returns to its old currency, the drachma. But there are no rules governing a country's exit from the eurozone, and a Greek exit could spark a panic that other debt-strapped European nations — Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy— might also have to leave.

The possible financial crisis — known in economic terms as contagion — could engulf the euro, causing a global financial panic not unlike the one that gripped the world in 2008 after the investment firm Lehman Brothers failed in the U.S.

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