Poll Shifts Frustrate Parties

It was a night of emotional ups and downs for political party aficionados with every exit poll revision. As usual, both the PM and SYRIZA leader, found political points to energize their respective base. Generally, though, the opposition scored some impressive results, particularly in Athens, with Gavriil Sakellaridis and the Attica region, with Rena Dourou.

Listening to the political leaders' messages just before midnight, one might conclude that everyone was a winner. Then again, that is not exactly a novelty in Greek politics.

The Prime Minister focused on the “undoubtedly positive for the New Democracy candidates around the country”, not failing to deliver the most crucial message of the night: that next Sunday, voters will have to choose stability for the country, or many steps back. He was, naturally, referring to the European parliamentary elections, which will offer the most clear picture of the country's new political map.

In this sense, the PM looked like submitting to SYRIZA's original message from the campaign, that the European elections are a referendum for the country's politics. A point not lost by SYRIZA president Alexis Tsipras, who appeared to agree with his opponent that the Euro-elections would serve as a poll for the austerity policies of the past two years. “The European elections will serve as the referendum for the memorandum policies that never happened as it should have”, he said after midnight.

It is obvious that the country is headed for a deeply polarizing last week of campaigning before the May 25 elections. SYRIZA will do their best to capitalize on their wins in Athens and Attica, attempting to widen the gap from New Democracy. The PM, on the other hand, will attempt to gather as much support among conservative voters as possible, by presenting the dilemma “stability or jeopardy”. In other words, he will be forced to embrace his junior coalition partner, Evangelos Venizelos' message during the campaign, when he said that if his party, PASOK, took a plunge in the polls, government stability would be at stake.

The most unfortunate finding of the night was the alarmingly high figure of Golden Dawn candidates both in Athens and in the Attica region. The neo-Nazis scored about 16% in Athens and 11% in the Attica region, an impressive turnout for a party accused by the judiciary for being a “criminal organization”, with its leadership already in jail. This is a disturbing performance, proving that a significant portion of the voters are identifying themselves with a fascist, paramilitary, bullying faction.

The clear loser of the night, though, were the pre-election polls. They couldn't be more wrong. They predicted a clear Kaminis win in Athens, Sakelaridis struggling to enter the second round and a very clear win for Sgouros over Rena Dourou in Attica. Whatever happened to get it so wrong, they will have to revise their working model if they want to maintain some form of credibility in the future.

SYRIZA scored some significant gains, but they are far from a clean cut win which could legitimize their claim that the government must go at once. Either way, the result of the Euro-vote will have immediate consequences in the political landscape, whether it means early general elections (as the opposition wants) or not.