The 2015 Greek parliamentary elections: from great expectations to no expectations

Abstract:

The year 2015 was an electorally intense one for the European South, with contests in Spain, Portugal and Greece indicating significant changes in the party systems and the emergence of new political actors elected in parliament and/or coming to power. For other recent contributions in the elections in context series, see for example André and Depauw (2015), Aylott and Bolin (2015), Arter (2015), Faas (2015), and Haugsgjerd Allern and Karlsen (2014).

Austerity functioned like a structure of political opportunity that altered party competition in a way nobody could have predicted three years before. Among the left-wing coalition in Portugal, the rise of Podemos to the third position among Spanish political parties followed by the collapse of two-partyism and the two consecutive victories of the Coalition of Radical Left (SYRIZA), the latter certainly provoked the most contradictory feelings and calamitous economic results.

Between the January 2015 election, in which SYRIZA was the first party of the radical left to have won power in the history of the EU (Rori 2015a), and the September 2015 election which confirmed its dominance, extraordinary events occurred, even for the turbulent politics of crisis-ridden Greece. Change confirms the course that started with the earthquake elections of May and June 2012 (Voulgaris and Nikolakopoulos 2014), ended the old two-partyism and brought about a new polarised, two-party system (Dinas and Rori 2013). It remains to be seen whether the September landslide constitutes the end of a realignment process which will stabilise the new, weaker two-partyism enacted by SYRIZA and New Democracy (ND) or whether it will be followed by large shifts and unsteady electoral performance (Moschonas 2015).

ESO: Background information: Greek legislative election, 20 September 2015 http://www.europeansources.info/record/greek-legislative-election-20-september-2015/

---