The 2012 Greek Parliamentary Elections: Fear and Loathing in the Polls

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1 .For other recent reports in this elections in context series, see Fernandes (2011), Haughton et al. (2011), Kennedy (2012), Kosiara-Pedersen (2012), Little (2011), Lutz (2012), Quinn (2011), and van Holsteyn (2011). 2 .The Greek word for ‘chaos’, featuring on Liberation’s front-page of 2 November 2011 to describe Greece’s economic and political situation. 3 . One of them eventually joined DIMAR and the other ANEL. 4 .The Liberals were divided into three different parties, DISY, Drassi (Action) and the newly formed Demiourgia Xana! (Recreate, Again!, DIXAN). None of the three parties managed to pass the 3 per cent threshold that was needed to enter parliament. 5 .Kouvelis had failed to win Tsipras during the intra-party competition in 2008. 6 .During the same period, two more socialist deputies resigned from parliament. Their seats were nonetheless kept by the socialist parliamentary group. In October 2011, another socialist deputy exited the parliamentary group, but kept her seat. Hence, in the aftermath of the November political crisis, the socialist party was left with a majority of 153. 7 .PASOK expelled 22 MPs, ND 21 and LAOS 2. 8 .Mainly the politicisation of the suicide of a left-wing activist in Syntagma Square and the publication of the diary of a previously socialist strongman who was implicated in a series of government scandals in the late 1990s and early 2000s. 9 A large number of HIV-positive prostitutes – the majority of whom were drug addicts – were arrested on the order of the Minister for Health, who tried to raise awareness of the issue by arguing that it was an enormous health risk; the Minister for Citizens’ Protection announced the opening of illegal immigrant detention centres in every region of the country, and opened one in Attica a week before the election. Both events gained visibility and were considered as electoral opportunism by human rights activists and pro-immigrant associations. 10 .Among the historical references of the anti-Memorandum discourse, the Nazi occupation, the junta and the radical change of 1981 figure prominently.