Greece Holds Parliamentary Elections

2012 Greece Elections

The Greeks began voting on Sunday in crucial but uncertain legislative elections, giving birth to a new government.

Election offices began receiving voters at 7 am local time (04H00 GMT) and will remain open until 7 pm local time (16H00 GMT). In total, some 9.8 million voters are expected to the polls and analysts say there is a 25% undecided.

The two major parties, the extreme right movement New Democracy and PASOK socialist suffer a very serious lack of credibility in a country experiencing its fifth year of recession and try to stay afloat financially thanks to two international rescue plans.

The Greek conservative party New Democracy won the most votes in Sunday’s general elections, with 19.18%, according to official projections, but the figure is way below the amount needed to form a government.

Projections made on Sunday by the data processing company Singular Logic, on behalf of the Ministry of Interior, showed that New Democracy would get 109 seats in the 300 members’ parliament.

The left movement Syriza would get second place with 16.3% and 50 seats, while the socialist PASOK, former holder of the majority, stayed behind with 13.6% of the vote and 42 seats.

The margin of error is 0.5 percentage points. (ARL)