Copyright (2015) George C Poulos

Greek National elections - 20th September, 2015.

What a "buzz" that was.

But what an extraordinary system that operates in Greece.

I was handed the same sized pamphlet for every party. About 19 in total.

Most of the forms were placed in the garbage after use.

My immediate thought was why don't European countries adopt a preferential voting system ala Australia?


WIKI:

The September 2015 Greek legislative election was held on Sunday, 20 September, following Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' announced resignation on 20 August. At stake were all 300 seats in the Hellenic Parliament. This was a snap election, the fourth since 2009, since new elections were not due until February 2019.

The election resulted in an unexpectedly-large victory for Alexis Tsipras' Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), which fell 6 seats short of an absolute majority and was able to reedit its coalition government with the right-wing Independent Greeks (ANEL). Opposition center-right New Democracy (ND) remained stagnant at 28% and 75 seats, despite pre-election opinion polls predicting a tie with Syriza or even opening the possibility of a ND government. Far-right Golden Dawn (XA) remained the third political force in the country with 7%, while the PASOK-DIMAR coalition rose to 4th place nationally, as a result of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) failure to increase its vote tally and Potami's collapse. The centrist EK entered Parliament for the first time in history, while Syriza-split group Popular Unity fell short of the required 3% threshold and did not won parliamentary representation.

Turnout was exceptionally low at 56.6%, the lowest ever recorded in a Greek legislative election.

Official results released by the Interior Ministry with 99.53% of votes counted:

SYRIZA 35.47% (145 seats)

New Democracy 28.09% (75 seats)

Golden Dawn 6.99% (18 seats)

Democratic Group (PASOK-DIMAR) 6.28% (17 seats)

Greek Communist Party (KKE) 5.55% (15 seats)

Potami 4.09% (11 seats)

Independent Greeks ANEL 3.69% (10 seats)

Centrists Union 3.43% (9 seats)