05-06-2012, 05:58 PM
This looks like big news to me, and I'd wager the stock market isn't going to like it, either: http://news.yahoo.com/angry-greeks-vote-...iness.html
Excerpt: "Greek voters enraged by economic hardship caused by the terms of an international bailout turned on ruling parties in an election on Sunday, putting the country's future in the euro zone at risk and threatening to revive Europe's debt crisis.
The latest official results, with over 61 percent of the vote counted, showed the only two major parties supporting an EU/IMF program that keeps Greece from bankruptcy would be hard pressed to form a lasting coalition.
Conservative New Democracy and Socialist PASOK, who have dominated Greece for decades, were holding less than 35 percent of the vote. That would mean they might only scrape the 151-seat threshold needed for even the most fragile majority in parliament.
Once mighty PASOK looked set to be pushed into third place by the anti-bailout Left Coalition party, in a stunning vote against austerity policies that have caused deep hardship in one of Europe's worst postwar recessions.
New Democracy was polling just under 20 percent and PASOK a humiliating 13.6 percent with the Left Coalition on 16.2.
In the last election in 2009, PASOK won a landslide victory with 44 percent and the Left Coalition had just 5 percent.
"I cannot take it anymore, living as beggars in our own country. The Left Coalition can shake them up, and wake them up," said Kate Savvidou, 65, a pensioner who deserted PASOK.
Left Coalition leader Alexis Tsipras, at 37 Greece's youngest political leader, hailed a peaceful revolution and said German Chancellor Angela Merkel should understand that austerity policies had been defeated.
"Greek people gave a mandate for a new dawn with solidarity and justice instead of barbaric bailout measures," he said.
In another indication of the extent of public anger, the extreme right Golden Dawn party was poised to take nearly 7 percent of the vote. This would allow such a party to enter parliament for the first time since the fall of a military dictatorship in 1974.
New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras called for a pro-European national salvation government that would keep Greece in the euro zone. PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos also called for a unity government, saying his party had paid the price for handling the sovereign debt crisis.
But the small parties who gained in the election are all against the bailout, while being too divided to form an alternative coalition.
If the results are confirmed, the election could plunge Greece into new political turmoil, reigniting a euro zone debt crisis first detonated by Athens in 2009, and starting it down a path that could take it out of the euro.
The Greek electoral shock coincided with the victory of Socialist Francois Hollande in France's presidential election and was likely to add to pressure for resistance to German-led austerity policies..."
Excerpt: "Greek voters enraged by economic hardship caused by the terms of an international bailout turned on ruling parties in an election on Sunday, putting the country's future in the euro zone at risk and threatening to revive Europe's debt crisis.
The latest official results, with over 61 percent of the vote counted, showed the only two major parties supporting an EU/IMF program that keeps Greece from bankruptcy would be hard pressed to form a lasting coalition.
Conservative New Democracy and Socialist PASOK, who have dominated Greece for decades, were holding less than 35 percent of the vote. That would mean they might only scrape the 151-seat threshold needed for even the most fragile majority in parliament.
Once mighty PASOK looked set to be pushed into third place by the anti-bailout Left Coalition party, in a stunning vote against austerity policies that have caused deep hardship in one of Europe's worst postwar recessions.
New Democracy was polling just under 20 percent and PASOK a humiliating 13.6 percent with the Left Coalition on 16.2.
In the last election in 2009, PASOK won a landslide victory with 44 percent and the Left Coalition had just 5 percent.
"I cannot take it anymore, living as beggars in our own country. The Left Coalition can shake them up, and wake them up," said Kate Savvidou, 65, a pensioner who deserted PASOK.
Left Coalition leader Alexis Tsipras, at 37 Greece's youngest political leader, hailed a peaceful revolution and said German Chancellor Angela Merkel should understand that austerity policies had been defeated.
"Greek people gave a mandate for a new dawn with solidarity and justice instead of barbaric bailout measures," he said.
In another indication of the extent of public anger, the extreme right Golden Dawn party was poised to take nearly 7 percent of the vote. This would allow such a party to enter parliament for the first time since the fall of a military dictatorship in 1974.
New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras called for a pro-European national salvation government that would keep Greece in the euro zone. PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos also called for a unity government, saying his party had paid the price for handling the sovereign debt crisis.
But the small parties who gained in the election are all against the bailout, while being too divided to form an alternative coalition.
If the results are confirmed, the election could plunge Greece into new political turmoil, reigniting a euro zone debt crisis first detonated by Athens in 2009, and starting it down a path that could take it out of the euro.
The Greek electoral shock coincided with the victory of Socialist Francois Hollande in France's presidential election and was likely to add to pressure for resistance to German-led austerity policies..."
