Guardian
May 8, 2012
Greece stays in the euro
Likelihood: 2/5
After an election that pushed Greece's pro-euro parties into a minority, the prospects for this scenario look slim. The country's mainstream parties – the right-of-centre New Democracy party and the social democrat party Pasok – saw their vote collapse to 32%, which translates as 149 out of 300 parliamentary seats. Compare this result with Pasok's landslide victory in the last election in 2009, when it gained 44% on its own.
But that's not the end of the story. After looking into the abyss, the majority of Greeks who tell pollsters they want to stay in the euro could bring themselves to support pro-euro parties in a second election. After all, they didn't vote for far-left or far-right parties just on the euro issue. Pasok's leader, Evangelos Venizelos, was punished in part for favouring cuts hitting the poor and public sector wages and ignoring the wealth and incomes of the richest that go untaxed to the tune of €77bn (£62bn).
The New Democracy leader, Antonis Samaras, was punished for underestimating the huge anger of the population over economic hardship, mismanagement and corruption when he insisted on calling Sunday's vote instead of allowing the interim prime minister, Lucas Papademos, to continue.
A second election would give the pro-euro majority a chance to rein in their anger and vote for one of the two main parties. Greece could then bid for more concessions from Brussels.
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