Helena Smith of The Guardian reports that officials in the pro-bailout socialist PASOK party are monitoring the exit polls every two hours. It’s important to state that voting is still going on at the time of writing and that many young voters wait for the last minute to cast their vote.Â
Update 3: Final results – Pro bailout camp wins. Read the results, coalition prospects, analysis, and market reaction (which was short lived).
Update 2: Final exit polls point to a victory for New Democracy, but it’s still too close to call.
Update 1: Initial official exit polls show a technical tie between SYRIZA and New Democracy. With votes from younger voters missing, this could be encouraging for SYRIZA.
In addition, the source is not really objective, and he has an interest in portraying a specific picture.
So, according to the report, pro-bailout New Democracy leads with 29%, followed by anti-bailout SYRIZA with 27%, and pro-bailout PASOK with 12%. Smith reports that the Democratic Left gets 6% and so does the neo-Nazi Golden party.
According to Greek election law, the winning party gets an additional 50 seats in the 300 seat parliament – a “reinforced majorityâ€. So, New Democracy would get 42% and together with PASOK’s 12%, they could form a pro-bailout coalition led by New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras.
With many young people still waiting to vote and the differences between exit polls and real numbers, the picture could turn out to be totally different.
Anti-bailout SYRIZA enjoys more support among young people. Its leader Alexis Tsipras is 38 years old. The pro-bailout parties enjoy stronger support from adults.
So, if the lead of pro-bailout parties is narrow at this stage, this could be encouraging for anti-bailout SYRIZA.
In case SYRIZA wins, the markets are expected to fall, but coordinated central bank action could follow and totally change the picture in favor of stocks and the euro.
See how to trade the Greek elections.
The vote ends at 16:00 GMT (19:00 in Greece) and that’s when official exit polls will be released. Significant real results will likely flow in at around 18:30 GMT (21:30 in Greece).
