Greeks head to polls Sunday; polls point to coalition government

During the crisis, the anti-bailout party’s ratings rose rapidly. In January, Tsipras swept to victory in the general election, pledging to “eradicate” austerity, but after months of brutal negotiations, with capital controls in place and ejection from the eurozone looming, Tsipras was forced to perform an about-turn despite the government’s acceptance of the deal despite more than 60% of the voters rejecting austerity in a July referendum.

The bushy eye-browed 61-year-old, a former lawyer, has narrowed the gap with Syriza since he took the helm of New Democracy a couple of months ago.

The conservative party was founded by prominent political figure Constantinos Karamanlis in 1974 after the fall of the military junta.

The Syriza leader is battling to be re-elected as Greece’s Prime Minister after he resigned last month to trigger a new ballot and refresh his mandate.

The bailout involved austerity measures which Syriza had vowed to oppose.

According to the Kapa Research poll conducted for the Greek To Vima newspaper, Syriza could get 29 percent of the vote in the upcoming election, while New Democracy may gain 28.4 percent.

“Given that the (third bailout) has been voted by an overwhelming majority of members of the Greek parliament, there is nothing at stake in these elections”, Dimitri A. Sotiropoulos, assistant professor of political science at the University of Athens, told Greek publication Ekathimerini.

Party leaders are out of chances to make their arguments to voters. With a hammer and sickle in its logo, the party still espouses Marxist-Leninist ideology two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

A fifth of Syriza’s MPs quit the party and set up a new one – Popular Unity – saying the deal to introduce more tax hikes and pension reforms in return for a massive global rescue was an unacceptable U-turn.”He had no option, he did it because he had to, for the country”, said retired former teacher Elias Pappas.

Another 8.5 percent answered “don’t know, did not answer”.

Still, if the victor can’t achieve a governing majority either alone or with smaller parties, “a Syriza or ND-led minority government would be short-lived”, potentially requiring yet another election this year if it loses the confidence of parliament, Iscaro said.

It supported the country’s third bailout in August.

Meimarakis has invited Syriza to take part in a coalition government with New Democracy, claiming that the problem of Golden Dawn as main opposition could be solved via institutional ways.

Despite having eight parties in the Greek Parliament, only Potami and PASOK can join either New Democracy or Syriza in government. Tsipras, struggling to rally disgruntled leftist and center-left voters, has said it would be an “abnormal alliance”.

The right-wing party was founded in 2012 when its leader, Panos Kammenos, and ten others broke away from New Democracy in protest at the second bailout. They have never married, despite the country’s strong conservative traditions.

“I think the goal of an absolute majority is totally achievable”, the young politician predicted ahead of the vote on September 20.

Meimarakis has also indicated his party wants to see heightened border vigilance to stem the influx of migrants not entitled to asylum protection.

A survey out on Wednesday showed that between 6 and 15 percent of the nation’s voting population is still undecided.