The upcoming elections in Greece offer the angry, frustrated and undecided voter a wide spectrum of choices. A whole of 36 political parties have submitted their applications to run for the parliamentary elections that will take place on May 6, 2012. Big parties, small parties, one-person parties, estalbished parties, fringe parties, weird parties and even parties that nobody knew or even imagine they could exist.
Apart from the known political parties like PASOK, Nea Dimocratia, KKE, LAOS, SYRIZA, Ecologists-Greens there are parties that run for the first time and have good chances to pass the 3% threshold and enter the Parliament. These parties are Indepdendent Greeks/Panos Kammenos, (ex ND), Democratic Left/Fotis Kouvelis (ex SYRIZA), Chrysi Ayvgi (extreme right).
Old but small parties like Marxists-Leninists and Troskyists that have no chance to push even one deputy in the Parliament, like Anticapitalist Left ANTARSYA, a party that managed to win some seats at the municipality elections of 201o.
And new parties like the Greek Pirate Party or civic movements that turned into parties like “Won’t Pay, Cant’ Pay” that have slim chance to elect MPs as well.
Not forget to mention the several partiotic, royalists and whatever motives parties that run at every election but remain outside the Greek Parliament.
This year, a new party called Tyrannicides impresses with its name even though I have no idea what it is about – although I could imagine.
However the party with the most original name is PA.E.KE. In Full: Independent Renewing Left, Renewing Right, Renewing PASOK, Renewing Nea Democratia, No to War, Action Party I Give Away Land-Plots, I Pardon Debts, I Save Lives, Panagriculture Labourers Movement of Greece (PA.E.KE.).Party Founder M. Tzalazidis
On upcoming Wednesday, April 25, the Supreme Court will check the applications and will rule which parties can make it to elections.
Even if the court will reject some applications, voters will enter the booth with a big bunch of leaflets on their hand.
If they do not know in advance what party they will choose, they could possibly spend even half an hour inside the booth trying to take a decision….
PS I don’t know how long a voter is allowed to stay inside the voting booth…
During the municipal elections I knew exactly who I wanted to vote for. But to my surprise I got 5 or 6 long lists with names. First I had to choose one of those lists (Mayor). Then I had to cross on that list several names and then another couple of names. All in all took me also almost 10 minutes to figure that out.
I took long enough to notice that ‘secrecy of ballot’ here in Greece is also something not to take too serious. As the election booths were placed not against a wall, but against the school windows. So that everybody could look in from the other side what you were doing. LOL!!! 😆
to make the long procedure short, many voters enter the booth with the crossed list of their choice ready in their pockets lol
That’s a joke, isn’t it??? 😯
No, it’s not.