Greeks citizens cast ballots today in an election that is being closely watched, as the outcome could decide whether the troubled country stays the course on a European Union austerity plan.
In 2010, as Greece was on the verge of a default on its sovereign debt, Athens agreed to unpopular austerity measures in exchange for billions of euros from its fellow European Union countries and the International Monetary Fund. The measures have cut salaries and pensions. Even so, public debt has climbed from 146 percent of GDP in 2010 to more than 175 percent of GDP last year — the second-highest in the world, Reuters notes.
As Joanna Kakissis, reporting for NPR from Athens, says: "More than a quarter of Greeks are unemployed. Four years of austerity ... have crushed the economy. Greeks are now poised to elect Syriza, a leftist party that calls austerity 'fiscal waterboarding.'"
As The Associated Press reports:
"The Syriza party led by Alexis Tsipras has remained firmly ahead of conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras' New Democracy party in opinion polls throughout the election campaign, which was called two years ahead of schedule."But those polls also have shown that a significant portion of voters remained undecided until the last minute, and suggest that Syriza might struggle to win enough parliamentary seats to form a government on its own."
"Final opinion polls on Friday showed Syriza, which has pledged to overturn austerity and renegotiate Greece's debt mountain, with a lead of between four and seven percentage points over its main rival New Democracy, with one poll putting the radical leftist party 10 points clear. "But while it seems clear Alexis Tsipras's barnstorming alliance of Maoists, Marxists, Trotskyists, Socialists, Eurocommunists and Greens will comfortably see off the conservatives of the prime minister, Antonio Samaras, they are far from certain to win the 151 seats they need to govern alone."
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