Fast moving Events in Greece: Far left ascendant

[muriel_volestrangler]

61. They need 40%+ of the seats, plus the 50 extra seats, to get a simple majority

300 seats, 50 go to the leading party, so 250 are divided up. A simple majority is 150+, so they need 100+ seats out of the 250; ie 40%+.

That live blog has a new country-wide poll:

2pm We've a new nationwide poll, this time from the VPRC company and published in Epikaira magazine. It was carried out between May 10-14 on a sample of 804 people.

It shows voter intention and includes don't know, abstentions, etc. The actual share of the valid poll would be higher in each case, in the event of an election.

Party: (voter intention)

Syriza: 20.3%
New Democracy: 14.2%
Pasok: 10.9%
Democratic Left: 6.1%
Communist Party: 4.4%
Independent Greeks: 3.7%
Golden Dawn: 2.2%
Recreate Greece: 1.6%

Other parties 2.3%
Undecided: 17.3%
Don't know/No answer: 6%

So, Golden Dawn disappearing (hooray!), but a lot still undecided. Those numbers there only add up to 89%, incuding the 'undecided' and 'don't know' figures, so I'm not sure how much that can be analysed. If you assume that the top 6 will get over the threshold, then, of the total for those top 6, Syiza has about 34% of decided votes - so not enough yet to govern on its own. Democratic Left has another 10% or so, so perhaps a coalition of those 2 could be possible.

They also have a new caretaker PM - a lawyer.