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South European Society and Politics

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The January 2015 Parliamentary Election inGreece: Government Change, Partial Punishmentand Hesitant Stabilisation

Yannis Tsirbas

To cite this article: Yannis Tsirbas (2015): The January 2015 Parliamentary Election in Greece:Government Change, Partial Punishment and Hesitant Stabilisation, South European Societyand Politics, DOI: 10.1080/13608746.2015.1088428

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South European Society and Politics, 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13608746.2015.1088428

© 2015 Taylor & Francis

The January 2015 Parliamentary Election in Greece: Government Change, Partial Punishment and Hesitant StabilisationYannis Tsirbas

In January 2015 an early parliamentary election was held in Greece, amidst harsh economic conditions and the saliency of the issue of Greece’s relations with the European Union. The election, won by the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), marked a popular will for a total change of the governing paradigm and economic policies and, at the same time, confirmed that in countries that face economic crisis and have signed bail-out agreements entailing harsh austerity measures government parties are sooner or later punished by the electorate, albeit in different degrees. In terms of systemic trends, the January 2015 election confirmed for the Greek party system an unstable process of acquiring a new shape.

Keywords: Election; Greece; Economic Crisis; SYRIZA; Tsipras; Economic Voting; Golden Dawn

The January 2015 Greek parliamentary election claims a special place in recent history as the first time a party of the radical left won a parliamentary election. The election was held at a crucial point in Greece’s economic crisis, which was more acute than ever. After five years of the implementation of austerity policies by several consecutive governments, a different response to the crisis was promoted by the Greek electorate. This paper aims to present and analyse the basic aspects of this important election, by answering two main questions: What were the patterns of electoral behaviour in the January 2015 election? What shape is the Greek party system acquiring after the dis-mantling effects of the twin earthquake elections of 2012?

The central argument of the paper will be that the January 2015 election was a case of retrospective and economic voting, through which the parties that had handled the economic crisis were punished by the electorate, largely conforming to what happened elsewhere, marking, at the same time, a popular will for a total change in the govern-

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ing paradigm. Regarding the second question, a discussion of systemic trends and the process of transformation of the still fluid Greek party system will be presented.

Context of the Election

After the outbreak of the global financial crisis, Greece’s poor public finances led the international money markets to continuously downgrade the country’s credit rating until it reached junk level and was unable to borrow. In May 2010, the one-party gov-ernment of PASOK (Πανελλήνιο Σοσιαλιστικό Κίνημα – Panhellenic Socialist Move-ment) signed the first Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the ‘Troika’, i.e. the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank (ECB), and the European Commission (EC), in order to receive a €110 billion loan and avoid a de-fault. The agreement entailed harsh austerity measures, which included a drastic cut in public sector wages, the layoff of public servants, a strict fiscal adjustment through cuts to public and welfare spending and the provision for primary budgetary surpluses, as well as several structural reforms concerning labour relations and the functioning of the economy. The agreement immediately became a hotly debated issue in the Greek public sphere and was met with protest from the opposition parties, except for LAOS (Λαϊκός ΟρθόδοξοςΣυναγερμός – Popular Orthodox Rally), a populist radical-right party (Mudde 2007) with nationalist and anti-Semitic features (Fragoudaki 2013), which voted for the MoU. New Democracy (Νέα Δημοκρατία – ND) did not vote for it.

In November 2011, however, PASOK stepped down and a coalition government was formed by PASOK, ND, and LAOS, led by a technocrat and former vice-president of the ECB, Lucas Papademos, in order to negotiate a second bail-out agreement, which obviously entailed a change of stance towards the MoUs on the part of ND. The second MoU was signed in February 2012, albeit without the participation of LAOS, which disagreed and left the government. In general, the division between parties supporting and parties opposing the MoUs has been a defining aspect of the Greek political space since 2010.

The subsequent twin earthquake elections (Voulgaris & Nikolakopoulos 2014) of May and June 2012 signalled a massive restructuring of the Greek party system and re-sulted in a coalition government with ND’s leader, Antonis Samaras, as prime minister. Except for ND – formerly a centre-right party, but at this point more right-wing – the government also included ND’s great adversary for three decades, the social-democrat-ic PASOK and the reformist-left DIMAR (Δημοκρατική Αριστερά – Democratic Left), which was founded in 2010 after a split from the radical-left SYRIZA (Συνασπισμός της Ριζοπαστικής Αριστεράς – Coalition of the Radical Left). In June 2012, SYRIZA skyrocketed to 27 per cent and second place, from 4.6 per cent in 2009. In total, seven parties entered parliament in 2012, including for the first time Golden Dawn (Χρυσή Αυγή), a nationalist and racist party, which got almost seven per cent of the votes. The other two parties were the right-wing, nationalist-populist ANEL (Ανεξάρτητοι Έλληνες – Independent Greeks), which was founded in February 2012 by former ND MPs who were against the MoUs, and KKE (Κομμουνιστικό Κόμμα Ελλάδος – Com-munist Party of Greece). Three major social divisions surfaced in the 2012 elections: an age gap, with SYRIZA dominating amongst younger voters and ND amongst older, a geographical gap, with urban centres voting for SYRIZA and rural areas for ND,

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and a social gap, with underprivileged and working-class areas voting for SYRIZA (Nikolakopoulos 2015; Voulgaris & Nikolakopoulos 2014).

In 2013, DIMAR left the coalition government, due to a disagreement with its gov-erning partners over the issue of the closure of the Greek national TV and radio broad-caster. The following year, in the European election of 2014, SYRIZA won with 27 per cent, leaving ND in second place with 23 per cent and GD in third place for the first time, with 9.4 per cent.

By January 2014, after five years of harsh austerity and fiscal measures, the Greek economy was not in a good shape. The public debt stood at 177 per cent of gross do-mestic product (GDP),1 compared with 129 per cent when the MoUs were signed back in 2010, and unemployment was 26.1 per cent.2 There was, however, an anaemic pri-mary budget surplus, as well as some prospects for slight growth. The last MoU and the adjacent loan agreement with Greece’s creditors was due to end on 31 December 2014. However, the ND–PASOK government failed to meet the agreed requirements in order to complete the final bail-out review with the Troika. Instead, in early December the Greek government and its international creditors agreed on a short two-month extension of the agreement because there was an ‘extraordinary, extremely urgent and non-predicted need’ for funds.3 The ND–PASOK government then immediately initi-ated an early presidential election process.

The President of the Republic’s term was due to end in March 2015 and the parliamenta-ry election was due by June 2016 at the latest. According to the Greek Constitution, howev-er, the president is elected by parliament, by an enhanced majority of 180 out of 300 MPs. If this majority is not achieved then national elections should be held and the new parliament can elect the president with a simple majority. The government parties, ND and PASOK, nominated a former European Commissioner and ND minister and sitting ND MP as their presidential candidate. Opposition parties, especially SYRIZA and ANEL, made it clear that they would not vote for a president, whoever the candidate might be, in order to bring about through elections a change of policies related to the economic crisis. The presidential candi-date only won 168 votes and thus a parliamentary election was called for 25 January. Given the financial circumstances described above, any new government was going to have to face immediately very tough negotiations with Greece’s creditors.

The party that would be the winner of the election was more or less certain, both from the May 2014 European election results and from the opinion polls that steadily showed SYRIZA ahead from spring 2014 onwards. The only really debatable question was whether SYRIZA would manage to get an absolute majority in parliament, i.e. at least 151 seats, in order to form a single-party government. SYRIZA won 36.3 per cent of the votes, securing the party 149 seats in parliament, only two seats shy of an absolute majority (Table 1).

Less than 24 hours after the election, SYRIZA formed a coalition government with ANEL, led by SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras as prime minister. In a 41-member cab-inet, ANEL obtained one minister (party leader Panos Kammenos in the Ministry of National Defence) and three under-secretaries. Hence, from the very beginning, the government configuration meant that the victory of the left did not automatically sig-nal the termination of the saliency of right-wing views and ideas within the Greek government. This trend had started in 2011, with the aforementioned PASOK, ND, and LAOS coalition government. When LAOS withdrew from the government, two of

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its more prominent cadres did not follow and joined ND, retaining their positions as members of the cabinet. In addition, ND was often accused of having extreme right-wing views, especially anti-immigrant ones. The latter leads us to assert that right-wing views have been a constant rather than a variable in Greek politics, inasmuch as all governments since 2011 have had such elements.

In terms of post-electoral developments, after his party’s great electoral losses, DIMAR’s leader, Fotis Kouvelis, immediately declared his intention of stepping down from the party leadership at a forthcoming party congress. Similarly, three days after the election, Evangelos Venizelos, the leader of PASOK, announced his intention of taking responsibility for the party’s defeat at the polls and of resigning at a congress to be held in a few months’ time. Congresses for both parties were held in June 2015 and resulted in Thanassis Theocharopoulos being elected as the new leader of DIMAR and Fofi Gennimata as the new leader of PASOK. In the case of ND, it was only in July 2015, after the defeat of the party’s position in the referendum held on a third bail-out agreement, which was considered an additional electoral defeat after that of January 2015, that Samaras, party leader and prime minister during 2012–15 also resigned, appointing the former speaker of oarliament and one of the party’s most iconic cadres, Evangelos Meimarakis, as transitional leader of the party.

Finally, with respect to the institutional framework, the ‘mixed’ logic of the Greek electoral system produces majoritarian results in the way it distributes parliamentary seats. Out of the 300 seats, 250 are distributed proportionally between all the parties that reach the three per cent nationwide electoral threshold, and the remaining 50 seats go to the first party as a bonus. There are 56 electoral districts in Greece, ranging from one to 42 seats each, where a total of 288 MPs are elected. The remaining 12 MPs are elected through nationwide lists.

Economic Voting and Greece

Of particular interest to this paper is economic voting (see Lewis-Beck & Paldam 2000), meaning a voting decision process that takes into account economic performance in

Table 1 Greek Election Results, 2009–15

Source: www.ekloges.ypes.gr.Notes: *European Elections; **In January 2015 DIMAR contested the election in a coalition with a for-mation that split from the Ecologist-Greens (Οικολόγοι Πράσινοι), called The Greens (Οι Πράσινοι).

2015 (%) 2015 (seats) 2014* (%) June 2012 (%) May 2012 (%) 2009 (%)

SYRIZA 36.3 149 26.6 26.9 16.8 4.6ND 27.8 76 22.7 29.7 18.9 33.5GD 6.3 17 9.4 6.9 7.0 0.3The River 6.1 17 6.6 – – –KKE 5.5 15 6.1 4.5 8.5 7.5ANEL 4.8 13 3.5 7.5 10.6 –PASOK 4.7 13 8.0 12.3 13.2 43.9KIDISO 2.5 – – – – –DIMA** 0.5 – 1.2 6.3 6.1 –Other 5.5 – 15.9 5.9 18.9 10.2Total 100 300 100 100 100 100

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evaluating incumbents. This is connected with issue voting (see Carmines & Stimson 1980) and the concept of retrospective voting (Fiorina 1981), which means that voters, in a process of reward and punishment, evaluate the performance of governments, and then vote on the basis of this performance.

Also, in the literature concerning the conflicts and dimensions of political compe-tition there is an implicit notion that political space is two-dimensional, with one axis broadly conforming to a distributional left–right dimension and the other axis corre-sponding to a cultural, value-oriented one. There have been various suggestions con-cerning the types and names of conflicts and dimensions, the presentation of which is outside the scope of the present paper. However, reference should be made to the work of Kriesi and his colleagues, who stressed the importance of globalisation in shaping political conflicts, especially in terms of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ who are represented by political parties (Kriesi et al. 2008, p. 3), a really useful concept when analysing cri-sis-ridden Greece.

In terms of the forces currently shaping the Greek political system, we know from recent research that the main conflict dimension for the Greek political elites is domi-nated by the issues of the MoUs and stances towards the European Union (EU), either forming an axis on their own when only European issues are examined (Tsirbas & Sotiropoulos 2015, p. 36) or dominating a left–right axis (Tsatsanis, Freire & Tsirbas 2014, p. 13). Therefore, the ostensibly ‘bizarre’ government coalition of SYRIZA–ANEL, bizarre at least in classic left–right or libertarianism–authoritarianism terms, can be explained through an anti-memorandum/pro-memorandum division, in which the respective poles comprise SYRIZA, ANEL, KKE, and GD in the former camp, and ND, PASOK, DIMAR, and after 2014 a new party, The River (Το Ποτάμι), in the latter one. Since KKE had explicitly ruled out the possibility of cooperating with SYRIZA, the only possible partner left for SYRIZA in the anti-memorandum camp was ANEL.

Additionally, since the explosion of the economic crisis in 2010, at both the demand and the supply sides of the Greek political system, there has been a growing tide of Eu-roscepticism or, at least, critical views about the EU, in a traditionally pro- European and pro-integration country,4 where Euroscepticism had been a relatively marginal phenom-enon (Verney 2011). Characteristically, from 1983 until 2010, the Greek public’s support for the EU was steadily higher than the EU average, according to Eurobarometer data (Clements, Nanou & Verney 2014, p. 250). After the first MoU of 2010, however, the EU started to ‘matter’ more and was linked to the country’s harsh economic situation, which was gradually being felt by large portions of the Greek population. Thus, the twin elections of 2012 were dominated by economic issues (Teperoglou & Tsatsanis 2014, p. 10) and were also perceived as a debate on the position of Greece within the EU and the Eurozone (Vasilopoulou & Halikiopoulou 2013, p. 538). However, Greek public opinion does not reject Europe: it has experienced a shift from ‘permissive consensus’, where the implications of EU policies for national audiences were limited, to ‘constraining dissen-sus’, where national elites cannot negotiate European issues without taking into account national public opinion (Hooghe & Marks 2008, p. 5). In sum, Greek citizens seem to want a more politicised Europe that will be more effective in providing solutions, within the EU and the euro5 contexts (Clements, Nanou & Verney 2014, p. 263).

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Concerning our punishment argument, research covering 55 countries during the period 1960–2012 has shown that economic crises negatively affect the electoral per-formance of incumbents (Vasselai & Mignozzetti 2012). Moreover, since the onset of the crisis we know that governing parties in Southern Europe have suffered greatly in electoral terms (Bosco & Verney 2012) and all of them have lost power, however being replaced by other traditional parties with governing experience in most cases. Also, according to Hernandez & Kriesi (2015), who have studied 30 European countries up to October 2014, the increase in economic misery is associated with worsening perfor-mance for incumbents, albeit mainly for the parties that provide the prime minister. This decline is even greater in hard-hit countries and in their second post-crisis elec-tion. The above-mentioned results serve as an appropriate basis for the formulation of a retrospective economic voting argument in the case of the Greek January 2015 election. Nevertheless, it has to be noted that in January 2015 Greece was a somewhat different case, since the election was won by a radical-left party that had never won elections before. Regarding the question of party system structure, the Sartorian (1976/1990) typology will be used to try to identify the transformation process that the Greek party system is undergoing.

The data used in the present paper are official results, both total and per electoral dis-trict, as well as data of the single exit poll6 that was conducted on the day of the election.

Electoral Campaign and Results

The issues of the way out of the economic crisis and the handling of the public debt as well as of relations with the EU were central during the period leading up to the 2015 election, while the possibility of Greece leaving the Eurozone or the EU altogether (a so-called ‘Grexit’) was deemed possible by various sources. It is therefore necessary to present the stances of the Greek political parties towards these issues (Table 2), along with their campaign strategy and their electoral results. In general, political parties followed somewhat ‘classic’ campaign methods, with a mix of street or indoor rallies (increasingly fewer and less passionate than in the past), internet and social media, and TV advertising.

Before proceeding to an analysis by party, some general remarks should be made. In total, 23 parties contested the election and seven managed to enter the parlia-ment. First, in January 2015 the abrupt end of three decades of bipartisanship that was signalled by the twin earthquake elections of 2012 was partially reversed. Al-most two-thirds of the electorate voted for one of the two biggest parties (SYRIZA and ND) (Figure 1). Second, SYRIZA was confirmed as the strongest actor in the Greek political system, with more than 35 per cent of the votes, more reminiscent of the electoral pattern before the 2012 earthquake than of the fragmentation in the elections that took place in that year. Third, the punishment hypothesis seems to be valid only concerning the smallest governing partners, PASOK and DIMAR, the former suffering great losses and the latter practically vanishing. This leads us to the fourth general conclusion, which is the fact that ND held on to a solid electoral base, increasing its vote share compared with the European election of

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2014 and getting only two per cent less than June 2012, when it won the election. Fifth, GD consolidated its position as the third-strongest political formation of the Greek political system, confirming the alarming fact that there is a solid, persistent, and not negligible space for extremist, anti-political, and anti-democratic views in crisis-ridden Greece. Sixth, The River (a brief description of which follows) sur-faced as an important new political player in the Greek political landscape and seems to be DIMAR’s replacement, both in terms of vote share and of positioning in the space between SYRIZA and ND (however, not in terms of ideological lean-ings, as will be explained later). Seventh, KKE recorded a partial recovery from its lowest ever performance in June 2012. Also, ANEL survived, although there had been predictions of the party not managing to enter parliament, especially after its

Table 2 Greek Parties’ Positions on Economic Crisis and European Issues before the January 2015 Election

Sources: SYRIZA: SYRIZA, ‘Hope is coming’, party manifesto brochure. ND: on the debt: interview with Samaras, Ta Nea, 17–18 January 2015, pp. 14–15. GD: ‘Political positions for the Golden Dawn of Hellenism’, online brochure (http://www.xryshaygh.com/assets/files/politikes-theseis.pdf ). The River: on MoUs: speech of Stavros Theodorakis in parliament during the programmatic statements of the new government, 10 February 2015 (http://topotami.gr/o-stavros/omilia-tou-stavrou-theodora-ki-kata-tis-programmatikes-dilosis/); on the debt: interview with Stavros Theodorakis, Star Channel, 23 January 2015 (http://topotami.gr/o-stavros/ellada-echi-mono-na-kerdisi-apo-tin-parousia-tis-stin-evropi/). KKE: ‘Invitation of the Central Committee for the 25 January election’, advertising bro-chure. ANEL: on the debt: speech of ANEL’s President, Panos Kammenos, 22 January 2015 (http://anexartitoiellines.gr/post.php?post_id=5,548); on the EU and the euro: ANEL’s ‘Founding declara-tion’, 24 February 2012, (http://anexartitoiellines.gr/diak.php). PASOK: ‘Keeping responsibility aloft’, advertising brochure.Notes: *With reservations by internal opposition LP; **New Democracy did not vote for the first MoU in 2010 and advocated against it. The party voted for all subsequent agreements and implemented them in government.

Party

Position on…

EU membershipEurozone/ currency MoUs Debt

SYRIZA For Euro* Against Agreed debt restructuring with creditors

ND For Euro Accepted** No restructuring – extension of debt repayment schedule

GD Ambiguous National currency

Against Debt audit and unilateral write-off of illegal and odious debt

The River For Euro MoUs have failed

Restructuring not doable

KKE Against National currency

Against Unilateral and to-tal debt write-off

ANEL For Euro Against Debt audit and write-off of illegal and odious debt after negotiations

PASOK For Euro Accepted The debt is controlled and sustainable

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poor performance in the 2014 European election. Eighth, the aforementioned soci-etal and territorial divisions that surfaced in 2012 were affirmed in 2015, reflecting the will for change that was dominant within the most dynamic strata of the Greek society. Finally, the slight upward tendency in the number of voters, which was traceable in both the local and the European elections of 2014, was confirmed in the January 2015 parliamentary election. Over 100,000 more people voted in 2015 than in June 2012, which translates into a 1.8 per cent increase in turnout. What follows is a party-by-party analysis of both the main campaign characteristics and electoral results, as well as data on the voting criteria and party identification.

SYRIZA

According to Spourdalakis (2014, p. 363), it was SYRIZA’s radical strategy and rhetoric that brought it to the verge of power. In terms of strategy, SYRIZA’s steady linkage with civil society and support for various social movements was important for its 2012 electoral performance (Tsakatika & Eleftheriou 2013), and it would be safe to assert that it has also played an important part in expressing the afore-mentioned will for change, which resulted in SYRIZA’s January 2015 victory. For example, during the main speech made in Athens three days before the election by SYRIZA’s leader and subsequent prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, in front of the podium were banners of several groups of workers who had lost their jobs because of the austerity measures and whom SYRIZA had promised would be reinstated should SYRIZA win the election. Another important feature of SYRIZA’s cam-paign was the active support by the Spanish party Podemos (We Can), which had a similar anti-austerity agenda to SYRIZA. This support was expressed in the slogan ‘SYRIZA–Podemos–Venceremos’, as well as in the presence of Podemos’s leader, Pablo Iglesias, in the above-mentioned street rally, at Tsipras’s side.

Furthermore, SYRIZA had been advocating a ‘government of the left’ since the be-ginning of 2012. Back then, a government of the left sounded more like a utopia rath-er than a realistic scenario. In the opinion polls of that period, SYRIZA was trailing well behind ND and PASOK and was positioned between third and fifth place.7 Hence,

86.5 85.979.9

77.4

35.6

56.664.2

20

40

60

80

100

2000 2004 2007 2009 May2012

June2012

2015

Figure 1 Sum of Vote Share of the Two First Parties, 2000–15.Source: www.ekloges.ypes.gr.

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SYRIZA had been training the electorate for the prospect of a left-wing government for almost three years. In 2015, SYRIZA’s main campaign concept was ‘hope’, its main slogan being ‘Hope is coming. Greece moves on – Europe is changing’, which aimed at portraying SYRIZA as a changing force for both Greece and Europe. Obviously, the alignment with Podemos served this purpose.

In terms of its stance towards the euro and the EU, SYRIZA’s official position was pro-European (Table 2), supporting Greece’s membership in the EU and the common currency. On the issue of the public debt, SYRIZA claimed that the debt was not sus-tainable and that a significant reduction should be made, but not unilaterally and only after negotiations with the creditors. Nevertheless, SYRIZA has an internal opposition named Left Platform (Αριστερή Πλατφόρμα – LP), which accounts for something be-tween 30 and 40 per cent of SYRIZA’s cadres.8 Some of LP’s members, as well as inde-pendent members and MPs are critical of the euro and the EU and do not believe that the sacrifices that the Greek people are making to stay in the Eurozone are worthwhile.9 Public statements of LP’s members have often attracted fierce criticism by pro-Europe-an cadres of SYRIZA and other pro-European parties, and have given the latter parties the grounds to assert that SYRIZA has aimed to bring about a return to a national currency. What is clear is that SYRIZA has both pro-European and Eurocritical flanks, Tsipras belonging to the former, which was dominant at the time of the January 2015 election.

SYRIZA increased its vote share by 9.5 per cent between June 2012 and January 2015, getting 36.3 per cent of the votes and managing to retain 85.7 per cent of its June 2012 voters (Table 3). Also, SYRIZA attracted 14.3 per cent of ND’s June 2012 voters, 37.8 per cent of PASOK’s, 37.3 per cent of DIMAR’s, 27.2 per cent of KKE’s and 12.4 per cent of GD’s (Table 3). In general, SYRIZA was the most popular destination for voters leaving other parties. SYRIZA’s vote share increased in every one of the 56 electoral districts between June 2012 and January 2015. In total, SYRIZA won in 42 electoral districts out of 56.

In terms of the social structure of its influence, SYRIZA, as in 2012, was dominant in all age categories up to 64 years and in secondary and tertiary education, according to exit poll results. In addition, SYRIZA received high percentages in working-class areas and was first in all the dynamic strata, including self-employed professionals, public servants, and bluecollar workers, as well as the unemployed.

New Democracy

New Democracy chose to run a campaign based on the fear of what a left-wing government led by SYRIZA would mean for the country. For example, in his final public speech, two days before the election, the President of ND said that ‘SYRIZA’s programme is a blade that will leave Greece’s middle class bleeding’.10 ND tried to portray the elections in general as a ‘collision between two worlds’ and in particular as a dilemma between the euro and a na-tional currency, accusing SYRIZA of jeopardising Greece’s European prospects. Regarding the debt, ND asserted that Greece was both obliged and able to fully fulfil its obligations towards its creditors, albeit with a prolongation of the payoff period (Table 2). However, ND’s campaign was not that successful. On the one hand, its strategy was criticised by high-ranking party members11 and, on the other, according to opinion polls, anger about

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the ND–PASOK government’s performance was greater than the fear caused by the pros-pect of a SYRIZA government.12 Additionally, ND underlined the problem of immigration, intensifying its right-wing hardline profile.13

In terms of its results, ND was very softly punished, even though it was the biggest party of the government, thus meaning that Greece did not conform fully to the findings in other countries. New Democracy lost only 1.9 per cent compared with June 2012, while it gained 5.1 percentage points in comparison with the 2014 European election. The party retained 69.7 per cent of its June 2012 voters and, except for the above-mentioned losses to SYRIZA, there was a significant flow of its voters towards The River (4.6 per cent) (Table 3).

New Democracy won 14 districts in total and it increased its vote share between June 2012 and January 2015 in seven out of the 56 electoral districts. It lost in every age category to SYRIZA, except those aged over 65 years, signalling a partial smoothing of the ‘age gap’ evident in the 2012 elections, the cut-off point of which was an age of 55 years. In January 2015, ND was dominant only amongst senior citizens. The latter fact corresponds to the finding of ND being first among pensioners (36.3 per cent), as well as housewives (36.9 per cent) and farmers (30.3 per cent), the social groups that are traditionally the most resistant to change.

Golden Dawn

Golden Dawn entered the central political scene in the local elections of 2010, when it got 5.3 per cent and elected its leader, Nikos Mihaloliakos, as a representative in the city council of Athens, and it got seven per cent in both elections of 2012. The party is explicitly attached to nationalist socialist ideas (Ellinas 2013, p. 560). Moreover, GD is centred around its ‘fuehrer’, makes use of violence, and runs a paramilitary organisa-tion (Georgiadou 2013, p. 87). Golden Dawn is clearly anti-immigrant, anti-political, and anti-democratic. At the time of the January 2015 election, GD’s leader and several MPs and cadres of the party were in prison, awaiting trial for forming a criminal or-ganisation, following a prosecution that was initiated after the murder of an anti-fascist rapper by a GD member in September 2013. The arrests somewhat halted GD’s influ-ence but did not totally reverse it, as the results of local elections (Tsirbas 2015, p. 143) and the European elections of 2014 (Teperoglou, Tsatsanis & Nikolakopoulos 2015, p. 1) demonstrated.

Table 3 Movements of Greek Voters between Major Parties, 2012–15

Source: Exit poll by ALCO, GPO, Marc, Metron Analysis, and MRB.

Vote June 2012Vote 2015 SYRIZA ND GD KKE ANEL PASOK DIMARSYRIZA 85.7 14.3 12.4 27.2 26.2 37.8 37.3ND 4.0 69.7 9.1 1.2 8.9 9.8 9.3GD 0.8 2.9 69.1 1.0 4.4 1.6 0.6The River 2.9 4.6 0.3 1.4 4.6 8.8 28.5KKE 1.1 0.5 0.3 60.5 1.1 1.7 3.1ANEL 1.1 3.6 3.2 2.7 44.2 1.7 3.1PASOK 0.6 1.1 0.9 1.3 1.2 24.2 3.3Other 3.8 3.3 4.7 4.7 9.4 14.4 14.8Total 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

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Golden Dawn was against the MoUs from the beginning. Regarding European issues, GD does not explicitly advocate an exit from the EU. However, the party consid-ers Greece’s EU membership to be responsible for the ‘destruction of Greece’s primary and secondary economic sectors’. On the currency issue, its position is that ‘national currency means national independence’. Meanwhile, GD has proposed a debt audit and unilateral restructuring of Greece’s ‘illegal and odious debt’.

Golden Dawn’s vote share was down by 0.6 per cent compared with June 2012 and by 3.1 per cent compared with the 2014 European election. However, GD was the sec-ond most successful party in retaining its June 2012 voters (69.1 per cent). The party suffered losses mainly to SYRIZA and ND (Table 3). In any case, this was the second consecutive election (the other being the European election of May 2014) in which the neo-nazi party affirmed its position as the third most popular political formation in Greece.

Golden Dawn managed to increase its vote share in 13 electoral districts. Its best performance was in a traditional extreme right-wing stronghold (Lakonia), with 10.5 per cent. The party also received vote shares well above its national average in some electoral districts of northern Greece, as well as in the district that comprises the ru-ral areas of the Attiki prefecture, which surrounds the city of Athens (8.4 per cent). In terms of the demographic structure of its vote share, it is clear that GD was much stronger among men (8.5 per cent of the national vote) than women (3.8 per cent), in the age category of up to 34 years (8.1 per cent), and amongst farmers (10.1 per cent) and the unemployed (9.1 per cent).

The River

The River was founded in February 2014 by the famous TV journalist Stavros Theo-dorakis. It attracted support from former cadres and MPs of DIMAR, as well as from small neo-liberal parties. The River’s political and ideological identity has liberal ele-ments concerning social issues like gay marriage (but not immigration, where the party is more conservative) and at the same time supports drastic reforms in the economy and the public sector, many of which are rather neo-liberal. The River’s first electoral appearance was in the May 2014 European election, when it got six per cent and elected two MEPs.

The River’s campaign was aimed at the party getting third place and leaving GD in fourth place, a goal that it marginally failed to achieve. The River is clearly pro-EU and pro-euro, despite the fact that its campaign did not lack in criticisms of the MoUs and of the governments that enforced them. The River had clearly stated that it was ready to participate in a coalition government, either with SYRIZA or with ND and other pro-European parties to secure the European prospects of Greece. In a somewhat ‘rit-ualistic’ campaign, The River advocated the need for a ‘national team’ to negotiate the terms of Greece’s relations with its creditors. The River asserted that a restructuring of the Greek debt, as SYRIZA was proposing, was not doable.

The River got 6.1 per cent, down 0.5 per cent from the European election. The River’s highest percentage was in the northern district of Rodopi, with 12.7 per cent, which can be attributable to one of its local candidates,14 and in two districts of the island of Crete,

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something that is probably due to the fact that Crete is the homeland of Theodorakis. The River also performed well in the two districts of the greater Athens area.

In terms of its sociodemographic profile, The River was stronger amongst women (7.4 per cent) than amongst men (4.8 per cent), while the age category where its vote share was the highest was the ‘productive’ voters between 35 and 44 years of age. Con-sequently, The River has a strong influence among people with university education (9.1 per cent), students (8.7 per cent), and wage earners in the private sector (8.2 per cent).

KKE

The KKE is the steadiest anti-EU political force in Greece. Even before Greece’s acces-sion to the European Community, in the early 1980s, KKE was fiercely against the Com-mon Market project. KKE strongly advocates Greece’s exit from the euro and the EU altogether. Its January 2015 campaign conformed to KKE’s timeless strategy of ‘many parties but only two policies’, meaning that KKE was the only real alternative to the implemented policies. KKE’s campaign primarily targeted SYRIZA, warning left-wing voters that SYRIZA would deceive them and that it would sign another memorandum entailing harsh austerity measures. It is noteworthy that almost two-thirds of KKE’s main pre-election brochure was devoted to criticisms of SYRIZA and the remaining third was about the ND–PASOK government and the party’s own propositions for the working class and trade unions.

KKE increased its vote share by one percentage point compared with June 2012. However, its vote share in January 2015 was 0.6 per cent lower than in the May 2014 European elections. KKE’s increase in the parliamentary elections had the character-istics of a national trend, since it happened in 52 out of the 56 electoral districts. Its highest percentages were in some of its traditional strongholds, that is, certain islands of the Aegean and Ionian Seas. KKE also performed well above its national average in working-class suburbs of the greater Athens area. KKE retained 60.5 per cent of its June 2012 voters and lost 27.2 per cent of them to SYRIZA, which justifies its hostile campaign against it. KKE had strong support among young people aged 18–24 years (7.7 per cent), students (7.4 per cent), and farmers (7.1 per cent).

ANEL

ANEL, in its 2015 election campaign, advocated a debt audit to define the size of the illegal and odious debt. The party suggested this debt should be written off after nego-tiations with Greece’s creditors and asserted that unilateral moves on the subject were not necessary. ANEL, despite its fierce criticism of the EU’s policies, supports Greece’s membership of the EU and the Eurozone. Regarding other issues, ANEL asked for a stricter immigration policy and a ‘strong, patriotic stance’ on national affairs. Moreo-ver, ANEL explicitly opposed any attempt to loosen the close ties between the Church and the state in Greece.15

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Between its first electoral appearance, in May 2012 (10.6 per cent), and January 2015 (4.8 per cent), ANEL lost more than half of its electoral influence. ANEL performed worse in every one of the 56 electoral districts in January 2015 in comparison with June 2012. The party retained only 44.2 per cent of its June 2012 voters, losing voters mainly to SYRIZA (26.2 per cent) and ND (8.9 per cent), but also getting around three per cent of the 2012 voters of ND, GD, KKE, and DIMAR (Table 3). Exit poll data indicated that the electoral influence of ANEL was rather flat, fluctuating around its national percent-age in most sociodemographic categories.

PASOK

PASOK used to be one of the two pillars (the other was ND) of bipartyism in Greece, holding office as a single-party government for 19  years between 1981 and 2011. PASOK lost more than two-thirds of its electoral strength between 2009 and 2012, down to 12.3 per cent from 43.9 per cent, and suffered further losses in the 2014 Euro-pean election. In January 2015, PASOK was one of the most severely punished govern-ment parties, for the third time.

During the campaign period, PASOK tried to remind the electorate of its role in ‘sav-ing the country’ by making all the difficult decisions, which came with a great political cost for the party. The party’s main slogan, which summarised the party’s strategy, was ‘Keeping responsibility aloft’. PASOK accused the anti-memorandum parties of irre-sponsibility, advocated the economic achievements of the ND–PASOK government, and argued that the country was ‘ready for take-off ’. PASOK is obviously pro-European and supportive of the euro. On the issue of the public debt, PASOK claimed that the Greek debt was ‘fully controllable and viable for at least ten years’, so there was no need for a write-off or restructuring. PASOK’s campaign also fiercely targeted KIDISO (Κίνημα Δημοκρατών Σοσιαλιστών – Movement of Democrat Socialists) a new party formed by the former PASOK leader (2004–11) and prime minister (2009–11) Giorgos Papandreou.

In January 2015, PASOK continued its electoral drop, down to 4.7 per cent from 12.3 per cent. Almost four out of ten (37.8 per cent) of June 2012 PASOK voters moved to SYRIZA in January 2015 and 11.8 per cent chose KIDISO. Moreover, 9.8 per cent chose ND and 8.8 per cent voted for The River. Only 24.2 per cent of its June 2012 voters voted for PASOK in 2015 (Table 3).

PASOK’s vote share decreased in every one of the 56 constituencies. Characteristic of PASOK’s near collapse at the polls is the fact that its 11 biggest losses include all four districts of Crete, the once absolute stronghold of the party where in the past it had eas-ily won percentages in the area of 50 per cent. Even more strikingly, PASOK’s poorest performance was in Crete’s Chania district, with 2.9 per cent. In 2009 PASOK received 57.9 per cent of votes in that district. PASOK was stronger amongst people with only primary education (7.0 per cent) and amongst farmers (8.1 per cent) and pensioners (7.7 per cent).

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DIMAR and KIDISO

DIMAR formed an alliance with a minor environmental party, The Greens. Before the election several MPs and members of the party split to join The River. DIMAR was pro-European and critical of the MoUs, voting against them in both 2010 and 2012. However, after the June 2012 election DIMAR participated in a government that im-plemented the MoUs as a way to preserve Greece’s position in the Eurozone. In January 2015 DIMAR practically vanished, getting 0.5 per cent, from 6.3 per cent in June 2012 and 1.2 per cent in the 2014 European election. One could argue that DIMAR was punished at the polls both for having been a junior government partner and for having left the government.

KIDISO, on the other hand, got 2.5 per cent of the votes and came close to entering parliament. KIDISO’s highest vote shares were in areas where PASOK had been tradi-tionally powerful, like Achaia and Crete, justifying PASOK’s campaign strategy against it. KIDISO can therefore be seen as one of the main reasons for PASOK’s electoral nosedive.

Voting Criteria and Party Identification

In terms of party identification, as presented in Figure 2, the party whose voters felt closest to it was KKE, with 69.6 per cent, followed by PASOK, whose remaining voters seem to have a strong sense of belonging to the party (64.6 per cent). New Democracy (58.3 per cent) and SYRIZA (55.5 per cent) were around the national average of party identification (55.2 per cent). Golden Dawn’s 50.7 per cent of vot-ers who identify with it indicates a somewhat solid electorate, with ANEL not far behind (47.4 per cent). The only party whose voters feel more indifferent (46.9 per cent feeling ‘neither close or far’) than close (40.9 per cent) to the party they voted for is The River, a finding that may be related to its yet fluid identity as well as to the fact that it is the youngest party of the political system and did not have the time to form close ties with its voters. In general, compared with the period from 1985 to 2009, when party identification levels exceeded 80 per cent (Teperoglou & Tsatsanis 2014, p. 226), the January 2015 figures confirmed the steep decrease of party identification levels in the Greek political system.

Regarding the voting criteria of the electorate, a ‘positive’ criterion (‘to support the party I like’) was first with 31.5 per cent. However, the criterion of punishing the government was very close, with 29.6 per cent, which supports the argument about retrospective voting. Punishing the government was the first voting criterion amongst all the parties of the opposition, according to exit poll results.

My Wins, Your Losses?

Aiming to further check the arguments about the popular demand for a sweep-ing change, we ran bivariate correlations between the vote shares of the seven parliamentary parties in all 56 constituencies (Table 4). The statistically signifi-cant results indicate a government–opposition divide, meaning that vote shares

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South European Society and Politics 15

are positively correlated between the government and opposition parties, and negatively correlated across them. For instance, ND’s and PASOK’s vote shares (the former governing partners) were positively correlated (r = 0.464, p < 0.01), mean-ing that in constituencies where ND had a high vote share one should expect a higher vote share for PASOK as well, and vice versa. At the same time, SYRIZA’s vote share demonstrated a strong negative correlation with ND’s (r = –0.836, p < 0.01) and with PASOK’s (r = –0.449). On the other hand, SYRIZA’s vote share was positively correlated with The River’s (r = 0.313, p < 0.05), which was negatively correlated with ND’s (r = –0.424, p < 0.01).

However, the above-described general pattern has one interesting exception: GD does not conform to the government–opposition divide, its vote share being negatively correlated with SYRIZA’s (r = –0.538, p <0.01) and positively correlated with ND’s, al-beit not so strongly (r = 0.268, p < 0.05). The finding was that where ND was stronger, GD was stronger too, while SYRIZA was weaker, which indicates that other factors, historical, cultural, or ideological, and in any case deeper than the circumstance of the election, are in place.

Systemic Trends

When we turn to the question of the shape of the Greek party system, the issue of ‘how many parties’ is important, since it is an immediate indicator of the extent to which political power is ‘fragmented or non-fragmented, dispersed or concentrated’ (Sartori 1990, p. 317). In the context of a radically changing party system, like the Greek one af-ter the twin earthquake elections of 2012, the degree of vote nationalisation becomes an issue of great importance because it can be a useful proxy in showing us to what extent the Greek party system is in a process of acquiring a new shape. In general, the national-isation of politics refers to the uniformity of political behaviour within political systems

Figure 2 ‘Do you feel close to or far from the party you voted for?’Source: Exit poll by ALCO, GPO, Marc, Metron Analysis, and MRB.

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(Caramani 1996, p. 206), mainly in geographical terms. In other words, nationalisation refers to the degree of dominance of national politics over local politics.16 Since the late 1980s, the Greek political system has been one of the most nationalised in Western Europe (Nikolakopoulos 1990, p. 235).

From the various aspects of nationalisation, the most useful in the context of the present article is the concept of convergence in terms of electoral support and espe-cially of the homogeneity of partisan support across different geographical units, i.e. electoral districts (Caramani 1996, p. 209). The seminal work in this area is by Rose and Urwin (1975), who employed a measure based on standard deviation. Many modifica-tions and improvements have been proposed since.

Bochsler (2010) further developed an idea by Jones and Mainwaring (2003) to use the well-known Gini coefficient, which is used for income inequalities, to measure the uneven distribution of vote shares across different territorial units. Bochsler (2010, p. 161) developed the ‘standardised party nationalisation score’ (SPNS), which corrected one of the main problems of previous indicators by taking into account unequal sizes of units in a given country.

By employing this measure in the last four parliamentary elections in Greece (2009, May 2012, June 2012, and January 2015) we found that the total vote nationalisation score, after plummeting in May 2012, returned to the levels of 2009 (Figure 3). How-ever, it is evident that the structure of the party system is different from that in 2009, as the effective number of parties, i.e. ‘the number of hypothetical equal-sized parties that would have the same total effect on fractionalisation of the system as have the actual parties of unequal size’ (Laakso & Taagepera 1979, p. 4, emphasis in the original), indicates (shown in the horizontal axis labels of Figure 3). From 3.2 effective parties in 2009, there were 8.9 effective parties in the earthquake election of May 2012, 5.2 in June 2012, and 4.4 in the 2015 election. Moreover, it seems that this process of nation-alisation does not equally include all parties of the parliament formed after the January 2015 election (Table 5).

SYRIZA continued to ‘nationalise’ its influence throughout the period under investigation, being the most nationalised party and the only party that has its peak in the 2015 election (SPNS: 0.944). New Democracy was the steadiest nationalised par-ty throughout the period under examination, as it demonstrated high nationalisation scores, except in May 2012. Golden Dawn’s nationalisation score seems to have stabi-lised, with a slight decrease compared with June 2012, as was the case for ANEL. The River’s nationalisation score was 0.881, indicating a party in the middle of a process of building a national audience. KKE’s nationalisation score was significantly lower (SPNS: 0.877) than the previously mentioned five parties’, which was expected, since KKE has some traditional strongholds, where its vote share in some cases is triple its national vote share. Finally, PASOK was the least nationalised party of the Greek par-liament, in January 2015. In absolute numbers, PASOK has lost almost 90 per cent of its electoral influence since 2009. At the same time, it seems that its remaining influ-ence was rapidly losing national coherence, with a standardised nationalisation score of 0.866, which more resembles that of parties that did not manage to enter parliament.17

Although some signs of a reinvigoration of bipartisanship were present in January 2015, Greece was still far from the bipartisanship of the past and seemed to be close to the

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Sartorian type of polarised pluralism (1990, p. 326). Such a party system type implies the existence of a duality or a central issue dimension that organises party competition into two poles, each one of which includes a dominant party (SYRIZA and ND in the Greek case), a shape that was already starting to form in June 2012 (Dinas & Rori 2013, p. 272).

In this respect, along with the number of parties, which also conforms to the Sartori-an polarised pluralism type, Nikolakopoulos and Martin (2015) point out the existence of parties that can boycott coalitions, like KKE, one extremist party (GD), and the fact that, according to public opinion surveys, the two biggest parties on the respective poles, SYRIZA and ND, are perceived to be positioned at the same distance from the centre. However, there is also evidence that points to moderate pluralism: firstly, there is the aforementioned weak tendency towards bipartyism and, secondly the existence of the possibility of alternative coalitions. Hence, it is evident that in January 2015 the Greek party system, although more stable than in 2012, seemed to be hovering between three different types: polarised pluralism on one side, bipartisanship on the other, and moderate pluralism as the point between the extremes.

Conclusions

To sum up, the January 2015 election conforms to a retrospective economic voting pattern but not fully. Only the smaller incumbent or former government parties were severely punished. At the same time, the fact that a party that had never governed

Table 5 Standardised Vote Nationalisation Score by Party, 2009–15

Source: www.ekloges.ypes.gr. Calculation as in previous table.

2015 June 2012 May 2012 2009SYRIZA 0.944 0.918 0.893 0.843ND 0.925 0.927 0.854 0.924GD 0.905 0.907 0.893 0.836The River 0.881 – – –KKE 0.877 0.867 0.892 0.842ANEL 0.908 0.915 0.915 –PASOK 0.866 0.877 0.874 0.943

0.913

0.874

0.908

0.914

0.85

0.86

0.87

0.88

0.89

0.9

0.91

0.92

2009-No of effective parties:

3.2

May 2012-No of effective parties:

8.9

June 2012-No of effective parties:

5.2

2015-No of effective parties:

4.4

Figure 3 Greek Standardised Party Nationalisation Score and Number of Effective Parties, 2009–15Source: www.ekloges.ypes.gr. Calculation by the author using a program available at: http://www.bochsler.eu/pns/index_us.html (accessed 10 April 2015).

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before won the election underlined the popular will for total change in the govern-ing paradigm. This demand is verified both by the confirmation and solidification of the age, social, and geographical gaps identified in the 2012 elections – which brought SYRIZA ahead in all dynamic strata – and by the pattern of mutual wins and losses between parties, that is the fact that movements happened mostly directly between po-litical camps and not within them. The above remarks lead to a characterisation of the January 2015 election outcome as total change and partial punishment.

The fluidity of the Greek party system was also confirmed, one party completely van-ishing (DIMAR), another one nearly collapsing (PASOK), and a new significant player arising (The River). Also, it has to be noted that SYRIZA presents the image of having a socially well-established, national electorate. At the same time, it is alarming that GD remains the third-strongest political force in Greece. In general, three years after the 2012 shock, Greek politics seems to be in an unstable process of acquiring a new shape. Nationalisation scores and the effective number of parties point towards a slowly stabilising party system. It is still debatable, however, where the pendulum will stop in terms of party system type, with some form of pluralism, either polarised or moderate, seeming the most plausible scenario.

However, there are two things that lurk in the background and could topple this unstable situation altogether. Firstly, for as long as the financial situation remains critical, the prospects of political stability will be hindered and, secondly, there are substantial anti-democratic and anti-political forces in the Greek political system, which could try to extend their influence and impose their agenda in the event of destabilisation.

AcknowledgementsThe author would like to thank the editors and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes 1. Source: Eurostat, http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/government-finance-statistics/statistics-illus-

trated 2. Source: Hellenic Statistical Authority, http://www.statistics.gr/portal/page/portal/ESYE/PAGE-

themes?p_param=A0101&r_param=SJO01&y_param=2014_04&mytabs=0 3. According to the amendment agreement (http://www.et.gr/idocs-nph/search/pdfViewerForm.

html?args=5C7QrtC22wEc63YDhn5AeXdtvSoClrL8tPgYioSqM0V5MXD0LzQTLWPU9yLzB-8V68knBzLCmTXKaO6fpVZ6Lx3UnKl3nP8NxdnJ5r9cmWyJWelDvWS_18kAEhATUkJb0x-1LIdQ163nV9 K--td6SIuasSeHNponQe6t2U5mpigerkpeyJJ9DAuzfgUC--nCqH).

4. Greece gained accession to the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1981 and became a member of the Eurozone in 2001.

5. In 2015, 84 per cent of the Greek public supported the euro. Source: Metron Analysis opinion poll, March 2015 (www.metronanalysis.gr).

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6. There was only one joint exit poll by ALCO, GPO, Marc, Metron Analysis, and MRB. All relevant data hereafter refer to this exit poll. The author would like to thank Elias Nikolakopoulos for providing the data.

7. Opinion poll by ALCO, 29 January 2012 (percentages): ND 21.7, PASOK 11.1, DIMAR 8, KKE 7.7, and SYRIZA 6.1; opinion poll by Public Issue, 15 January 2012 (percentages): ND 18.8, PASOK 11, KKE 8.7, and SYRIZA 6.9 (parties in positions below SYRIZA not presented).

8. In July 2013, in the elections for the Central Committee (CC) of SYRIZA, the LP ballot received 30.2 per cent of votes (http://www.naftemporiki.gr/cmsutils/downloadpdf.aspx?id=675,464) Also, in February 2015 the SYRIZA–ANEL government made an intermediary deal with Greece’s cred-itors. When the deal was brought to SYRIZA’s CC for approval, the members of the LP declared that they would not vote for it. The agreement was approved by 92 out of 165 CC members, while 68 members voted against it (41 per cent). (http://www.naftemporiki.gr/story/921,480/egkrith-ike-i-politiki-apofasi-tis-ke-tou-syriza).

9. See the article in The Guardian by SYRIZA’s MP Lapavitsas, ‘To beat austerity, Greece must break free from the euro’ (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/02/austeri-ty-greece-euro-currency-syriza).

10. Speech of ND’s President Antonis Samaras at ND’s last pre-election rally in Athens, 23 January 2015, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KWaSJKppbg.

11. ‘It was a mistake that it seemed like we were investing in fear’ (http://www.periodista.gr/greece/item/15832.htm). Also ‘the fear strategy of ND has a boomerang effect’ (http://news247.gr/ eidiseis/politiki/ekloges-gr/ekloges2015/vomves-antwnaroy-h-strathgikh-toy-fovoy-ths-nd-gyr-izei-mpoumerangk.3261905.html).

12. http://www.rass.gr/surveys/iefimerida_130115.pdf13. From the same speech: ‘They want to open the borders and leave us to the mercy of gangs’ (https://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KWaSJKppbg).14. Ilhan Ahmet, a former MP of ND and former candidate with DIMAR, a cadre with powerful net-

works in the local Muslim community, which is an official minority and comprises around 60 per cent of Rodopi’s population. Ahmet received 5,679 votes out of the 8,444 River’s votes in Rodopi.

15. In Greece the Orthodox Church and the state are closely connected. For example, priests are civil servants.

16. A thorough review of the extended literature on the ‘nationalisation’ of politics is outside the scope of this paper. The term originates from the work of Stokes (1967). An overview can be found in Caramani (1996) and Bochsler (2010), where there is an analytical presentation of the index adopted in the present paper.

17. For example, ANTARSYA (Anticapitalist Left Cooperation for the Overthrow (Αντικαπιταλιστική Αριστερή Συνεργασία για την Ανατροπή), a small party of the radical left, and Teleia (Point-Τελεία), a party formed by a famous former actor and mayor of a small rural town of Central Greece, had greater vote nationalisation scores than PASOK in January 2015.

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Yannis Tsirbas is Lecturer at the University of Athens. He has published a book on political communication (28 days: Elections, Political Advertising and Political News, Athens, Papazisis, 2007), as well as articles in journals like South European Society and Politics and Greek Political Science Review and chapters in edited volumes such as ‘Los principales narradores y la narrativa dominante de la crisis griega’ in Martin, I. & Tirado, I (eds.) Grecia: aspectos políticos y juridico-economicos de la crisis, Madrid: Centro de Estudios Politicos and Constitucionales (2015).

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