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Greece elections: dead heat race moves to ballot box |
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April 10, 2000
ATHENS, APR 9 (AP) - Both parties claim victory is certain. The only certainty, however, is that one will be right.
Greece's cliffhanger election race reaches the ballot box Sunday. The outcome will either extend the dynasty of the Socialists or give their conservative opponents only their second taste of power in the past 19 years.
But the drama does not go much farther than who will control the 300-seat Parliament. Regardless of the winner, no big policy shifts are expected on core issues such as scaling back the state's role in the economy and improving relations with longtime rival Turkey. |
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Supporters worked up to the last hours to try to squeeze out every vote with most analysts calling the race a dead heat.
Party flags - green for the Socialists and blue for the New Democracy opposition - were handed out to motorists as thousands of people streamed out of Athens to vote in their hometowns. Planes and buses were packed with voters using tickets paid by their parties.
Voting is compulsory in Greece, which has 10.2 million people but nearly 9 million voters because of an aging population and Greeks returning from abroad to vote. First results were not expected until shortly after polls close at 7 p.m. (1600 GMT).
But that didn't stop party leaders - and the highly partisan Greek press - from declaring victory before a single vote was cast.
The Apogevmatini daily cited "secret polls" showing a lead for the conservatives headed by Costas Caramanlis.
"The people declare a big victory," wrote Ta Nea after a final rally by Premier Costas Simitis.
The daily newspaper To Vima cautiously asked: "Premier Simitis or Caramanlis?"
The answer could rest in rural areas, particularly the struggling farming belts in central and northern Greece.
The conservatives have tried to portray the Socialists as ignoring rural Greece in the drive to achieve European Union fiscal goals. Socialists sought to reclaim their credibility among farmers by promising the hallmarks of past governments: generous social programs and agriculture subsidies.
Another key factor could be the once-skyrocketing Athens Stock Exchange, which has tumbled sharply in recent months. The Socialists openly linked their policies with the exchange's success last year, but now insist they never encouraged a rush to invest. More than 10 percent of Greeks own stocks.
In a Friday rally to close the campaign, Simitis sought to strike a difficult balance between the old Socialist rhetoric of state aid and his strict fiscal controls, which have brought the EU's poorest country to the threshold of joining the bloc's single currency group.
New Democracy, in a blitz of well-crafted television advertisements, has accused the government of losing touch with common Greeks and allowing unemployment to hover at about 11 percent. Caramanlis also has pledged to speed up privatizations.
But his party makes no direct attack on government fiscal policies. They share the same goals: further integration with EU standards and selling off more state-owned enterprises.
A big question mark is whether the new government will have a strong enough grip on Parliament to continue with reforms. A slim majority by either side could be vulnerable to special interests that could slow or stymie tough decisions. The Socialists now dominate with 160 seats compared with 103 for New Democracy.
For the first time in years, foreign affairs are deep in the background - a rarity in a nation that has a history of disputes in the region over territorial and ethnic issues. The Socialists have also backed off the anti-American stance promoted under the late party founder Andreas Papandreou.
But the fallout from the US-led NATO military intervention in Kosovo could give a boost to the Greek Communist Party, which led wildly popular protests against the war. In the last Parliamentary elections in 1996, the Communists received 5.6 percent of the vote and 11 seats. But they surged to 8.7 percent of the vote in European Parliament elections last year.
In 1996, the Socialists took 41.5 percent and New Democracy had 38.1 percent.
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