Analysis: Anti-Austerity SYRIZA Takes Greek Elections

PM Elect Alexis Tsipras CC Flickr Joanna, changes made, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Coalition Considerations

At time of writing SYRIZA is projected to take 149 seats, two short of the absolute majority needed to form a government without a coalition partner. Such a wide margin of victory means a SYRIZA-led government is all but inevitable. The only question is which smaller party Tsipras decides to bring into the government – a decision that will hold clues as to the policy posture of the new Greek government.

There are a few possibilities available to SYRIZA. First is To Potami, a newly-created party that at 50%-counted took roughly 5.8% of the vote (good for 17 seats). To Potami had been most widely tipped to enter into a coalition with SYRIZA in the lead-up to the election. Its policy positions tend to be centrist and pro-European, and a SYRIZA-To Potami coalition would allow Alexis Tsipras to moderate some of his more extreme views on renegotiating Greece’s bailout package under the pretense of coalition politics.

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