Legislative elections were held in Greece on Sunday, 6 May 2012 to elect all 300 members to the Hellenic Parliament. It was scheduled to be held in late 2013, four years after the previous election; however, an early election was stipulated in the coalition agreement of November 2011 which formed the Papademos Cabinet. The coalition comprised both of Greece's traditional major political parties, PASOK on the left and New Democracy (ND) on the right, as well as the right-wing Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS). The aim of the coalition was to relieve the Greek government-debt crisis by ratifying and implementing decisions taken with other Eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) a month earlier.
The elections delivered massive losses for the parties of the outgoing government, resulting in a realignment of Greek politics. PASOK, who won the 2009 election in a relative landslide, won just 13% of the overall vote, a decline of almost three-quarters. ND emerged in first place with just 19% of votes, approximately half of its previous result. LAOS lost all of its seats. Syriza, previously a minor party on the left-wing, ran on an anti-austerity platform and outpolled PASOK with 17% of the vote. The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) improved its performance to 8.5%. Three new parties entered Parliament in the election – the right-wing populist Independent Greeks (ANEL) won 11%, the far-right Golden Dawn (XA) 7%, and the Democratic Left (DIMAR) 6%.
New Democracy won a substantial plurality of 108 seats thanks to Greece's majority bonus, but ND and PASOK were the only pro-bailout parties present and now lacked a majority between them. Conversely, the anti-bailout parties were deeply divided between left and right. ND leader Antonis Samaras, Syriza's Alexis Tsipras, and PASOK's Evangelos Venizelos all tried and failed to put together governments in the days following the election. On 16 May, President Karolos Papoulias appointed Panagiotis Pikrammenos as caretaker Prime Minister and scheduled a new general election for 17 June.
Background
The European sovereign debt crisis and the Greek financial crisis, in particular, have led to an escalated political crisis. There was an announcement by Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou that a referendum would take place to determine whether Greece would accept the next bailout deal with the European Union, the IMF and the European Central Bank (ECB). However such a referendum never took place. The parties of the opposition and politicians from within the ruling PASOK subsequently demanded early elections.
At the same time, protests and strikes in Greece have been commonplace, with some turning violent. Social unrest in the country is the result of a series of austerity packages passed by the Greek parliament since 2010.
On 4 November 2011, there was a vote of confidence in Parliament, narrowly won by the government of George Papandreou by a vote of 153 to 145 in the 300-seat body. Although a number of PASOK MPs said they would not support the government in the vote of confidence, all 152 eventually did support the government after PASOK's leader Papandreou agreed to step down as Prime Minister in order for a government of national unity to take over. Following the vote of confidence one previously expelled PASOK member was re-admitted to the party, raising the Papandreou majority to 153 seats. Despite the narrow victory, Papandreou eventually resigned a few days later, making way for a three-party "grand coalition" caretaker government under Lucas Papademos, a former ECB vice president, with the support of PASOK, ND and LAOS. However, LAOS later resigned over further austerity measures.
Procedure
Voting is mandatory; however none of the legally existing penalties or sanctions have ever been enforced. 250 seats will be distributed on the basis of proportional representation, with a threshold of 3% required for entry into parliament. The other 50 seats will be awarded to the party or coalition that wins a plurality of votes, according to the election law. Parliamentary majority is achieved by a party or coalition of parties that command at least one half plus one (151 out of 300) of total seats. Blank and invalid votes, as well as votes cast for parties that fall short of the 3% threshold, are disregarded for seat allocation purposes.
Date
In a speech to parliament on 4 November, Evangelos Venizelos said that the caretaker government would last until February. In late December 2011, it was decided that the election would be pushed back to late April, in order to allow the technocrat government to pass austerity measures.