Greek president to attempt to form unity government

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: CNN

Greek President Karolos Papoulias is preparing to hold talks with party leaders Saturday in an attempt to create a national unity government, after a third party failed in its efforts to form a coalition.

Evangelos Venizelos, leader of the country's socialist party, PASOK, met with the president Saturday to pass on the baton, a week after parliamentary elections gave no party a majority.

Speaking after the meeting, Venizelos said PASOK, New Democracy and the Democratic Left have said they would be willing to go into a grand coalition on the condition of remaining in the euro, offering a possible way out of the impasse.

But this could still be problematic as the Democratic Left has previously said it will only join a coalition if the party which placed second in Sunday's election, the Coalition of the Radical Left, or Syriza, also joined.

Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/12/world/europe/greece-politics/?hpt=hp_t3

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If there is a new election:

Greece's Leftist Syriza Gains Support And Lands First- Poll

Greece's radical leftist SYRIZA party has gained support since Sunday's May 6 elections and became the country's most popular party, poll showed Saturday, as talks among leaders failed to end the political deadlock and the country is heading towards fresh elections.

According to a poll by Metron Alanylisis published in Ependytis weekly newspaper, Coalition of Radical Left-- which received a historically unprecedented boost and came second on Sunday's elections-would receive 25.5% of votes if elections were held today, almost 9% up on May 6 result.

The two previously mainstream parties, which backed the country's former coalition government, the Conservatives New Democracy party and the Socialist Pasok have also clawed back some support.

More specifically, support for New Democracy gained slightly, to 21.7% up from 20.3% support it received in the elections, while PASOK would receive 14.6%, up from 12.6%.

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20120512-700943.html

[harmonicon]

1. I would be interested to know how many votes went to parties which didn't make it into parliament.

I really think instant runoff voting is the future if we want real, effective democracy. How would the numbers have changed if those who voted for parties not now represented in parliament could have had their votes for second or third choice counted? Perhaps then a coalition could be formed.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. From a Guardian page, 80.97% was the total for parties that got seats

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2012/may/06/greece-elections-results-map
It gives the next few that didn't reach the threshold:
Ecologist Greens 2.93%
Laos 2.9%
Disy 2.55%
Recreate Greece 2.15%

That leaves another 8.5% for other parties smaller than that. And seems to confirm the Wikipedia results are accurate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_legislative_election,_2012#Results

[harmonicon]

3. Wow. That's quite sizable.

Certainly there would be a significant change if those votes were divided between the parties that did get seats, or, of course, maybe if instant run off ballots existed, some of those parties would have made it in and could be part of a coalition.

Thanks for the links - I guess I was interested, but not interested enough to do all of the work that using google entails... you know, typing, looking, clicking... whew...