Greece: Anti-bailout deal parties surge in exit polls

Results from exit polls are listed by Bloomberg here. The results so far suggest that even together the two biggest parties New Democracy (center-right) and PASOK(socialist) will not have enough seats to form a coalition government.

Although New Democracy had a slight lead according to one poll it was only between 17 and 20 per cent of the vote. Behind them was the other main party PASOK with between 14 and 17 per cent. However the anti-bailout party Syriza came from nowhere to get 15.5 to 18.5 per cent of the vote. Independent Greeks another anti-bailout party got as much as 12 per cent of the vote as well.

Martin Blum an asset management official at Ituba Capital said:“It’s a meaningful bearish shock to the lazy market consensus that New Democracy and Pasok could form a majority coalition,” The two old line parties need 151 seats to form a majority in the new parliament. It looks as if they may not reach that level.

Greece has received two bailouts amounting to 314 billion dollars altogether. In return the government has imposed pension and wage cuts as well as higher taxes. It is also privatizing state assets. If the new government cannot continue and even increase austerity measures the funds may stop flowing. International lenders want to know by June how Greece is going to achieve 11.6 billion euros in savings in the next two years.

The Greek economy is in a shambles with unemployment at almost 22 per cent. Among youth,, the figure is about 51 per cent. For more see this article. 
   Results are shown as they come in at this site including vote percentage for each party.