A short primer on elections, parties and polls in Greece

[ The following text is intended for an audience that wants a simple introduction to the Greek election culture. Readers who would like a detailed description may start their journey from Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Greece ]




1. Electoral system

There is a total of 300 seats in the Greek parliament and an electoral threshold of 3%. 250 of the seats are allocated proportionally to the parties who pass the threshold, while the remaining 50 seats are awarded to the majority party as a bonus. Due to the fact that about 5%-10% of the valid votes go to parties that do not pass 3%, a party that passes this threshold secures at least 8 seats.


More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Greece#Electoral_system



2. Political parties

The main political parties in Greece, as of August 2015, are:

SYRIZA: left-wing, currently ruling party, elected on an anti-bailout agenda but in the end did sign bailout agreement, led by A. Tsipras (current Prime Minister)

New Democracy: conservative, far-right to centre-right, ruled country in early-to-mid '90s and late-'00s, led (in a provisional capacity) by V. Meimarakis

Golden Dawn/XA: far-right, nationalist, white supremacist, currently under investigation for criminal/gang activities

Potami/River: centre, liberal democrats, pro-euro, led by S. Theodorakis (former TV host), strong presence in Crete and in the outskirts of Athens

KKE: communist, anti-euro, anti-capitalism

Independent Greeks/AnEl: right-wing populist, EU-skeptic, US-friendly, led by P. Kammenos (current Minister of Defense, former member of New Democracy), strong presence in the Attica region

PASOK: centre, social democracy, former ruling party of Greece during the '80s and mid-'90s-to-mid-'00s, led by F. Gennimata

Centrists Union: centre, led by V. Leventis (used to own a TV channel in the '90s where he hosted a show attacking PASOK and New Democracy leaders, used to be - or still is - considered as "the butt of every joke"), strong presence in Northern Greece

People's Unity/Popular Unity: far-left, anti-euro, anti-bailout, split from SYRIZA, led by P. Lafazanis (former member of SYRIZA's "Left Platform" group), affiliated with a group led by Z. Konstantopoulou (current House Speaker)

Movement of Democratic Socialists/Kinima/KiDiSo: centre-left, social democracy, led by G. A. Papandreou (former Prime Minister and former PASOK leader)

Teleia/Full Stop: led by A. Gkletsos (popular actor-turned-mayor), strong presence in Central Greece

ANTARSYA/Mutiny: far-left, anti-euro, anti-capitalism


More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_Greece



3. Polls

Polls in Greece are presented in two ways:

- "Vote Intention" chart: This type of poll presentation includes all responses to the question "Who would you vote for?", namely party, "Blank/Invalid", "Abstain" and "Don't Know/Won't Answer" percentages. Some pollsters (uncoventionally) bundle together the three latter categories under a single one named "Undetermined".

- "Vote Estimate" chart: This type of poll presentation is a projection of party percentages on the remaining sum after removing "Blank/Invalid", "Abstain" and "Don't Know/Won't Answer" percentages. Some pollsters perform a semi-projection by keeping the "Don't Know/Won't Answer" percentage.


In order for polls to be eligible for public broadcast, Greek law dictates that their sample size has to be at least 1,000 and that the maximum margin of error for the point estimates be reported together with the person/company/organization who ordered the poll. Greek media tend to collectively dismiss the margin of error and just focus on the point estimates.

Almost all polling firms tend to present their polls as independent from past ones, although there is strong evidence to the contrary (i.e. complete absence of naturally occuring spikes in a longitudinal projection of party percentages of polls from the same pollster). The polling firm "Public Issue" seems to be the only exception, since they clearly state that they perform a timeseries adjustment on the individual poll results, ending up presenting only "Vote Estimate" charts.

There is also wide speculation that most polling firms "fudge" their results depending on who ordered the poll (*). Consequently, there is strong and consistent chatter that clutters the social media spaces regarding "secret polls" and/or "real polls" that purportedly show the "real difference between the parties". Other chatter glorifies unscientific and rather easily manipulated "web polls" conducted by Internet media who specialize in click-bait articles.



(*) Nothing has been proven, or even contested in court yet, however basic modelling indicates that a variable describing party affiliation of the polling firm and/or the company who ordered the poll yields more accurate predictions. More on that in a future post.