Syriza:
At the end of the election period as Syriza finally managed to maintain its party cohesion at a satisfactory 76.3%.
Its most significant losses:
– Popular Unity: 5.8%, not as considerable as one would expect at the end of August
– New Democracy: 5.2%, conservative voters that have turned to Syriza in January due to taxation,
– About 2% lost to KKE, ANEL, Pasok-Dimar, Centrists’ Union and Other Parties.
The main inflows:
– New Democracy: a significant 5% convinced by the negotiating effort of A. Tsipras,
– Potami where 1 in 4 (23%) of its voters moved to Syriza,
– 14.4% of KKE, 12.3% of ANEL and 11.4% of Pasok,
– 1 in 5 (21.9%) of Kinima (George Papandreou’s party),
– Insignificant inflow recorded from Golden Dawn (6%).
New Democracy:
It managed to maintain the high party cohesion rate evident from the beginning of the election period to 83.1%. However, this was not sufficient to reverse the situation, as inputs from other parties were insufficient.
Its most significant losses:
– 5% to Syriza,
– 3,3% to the Centrists’ Union,
– About 2% towards Golden Dawn, Potami and Other Parties.
The main inflows:
– 5,2% of Syriza,
– 16,2% of Potami,
– 18,1% of ANEL,
– 9,3% of Golden Dawn and 7% of Pasok.
Golden Dawn:
They maintained almost 8 out of 10 (78.6%) voters, while also had some gains from Syriza and New Democracy, which allowed them to raise their final percentage.
Potami:
Its de-cohesion – only 46% of their voters chose Potami in these elections – was a catalyst for the weakening the party. The substantial leak to the two-party system (almost 40%) was impossible to make up for by the limited inflows from other parties’ voters.
KKE:
KKE kept its electoral forces with a high cohesion rate of about 80%, while the leak to Syriza was replaced by former KKE voters who had opted for Syriza in previous elections.
Independent Greeks:
Despite the loss of 1/3 of their power to the two major parties, ANEL pulled in a small but critical portion of Syriza and New Democracy voters and succeeded to enter the new parliament.
Pasok-Dimar:
The Democratic Coalition was strengthened mainly because of limited leaks to the two-party system. a significant inflow from Syriza and New Democracy and, as expected, by the inflow of 6 out of 10 former Kinima voters.
Centrists’ Union:
While CU failed to retain more than 6 out 10 of its January 2015 voters, it achieved decisive inflow from Syriza (2.3%) and New Democracy (3.3%) (around 1.5 to 2 percentage points from the two parties), and secured a comfortable entry in parliament.
Men – Women
Women proved to be A. Tsipras’s strong hand as he received 12% more women votes than the ND (39.2% – 27.4%). Golden Dawn showed strength in the male population, while it seems that Fofi Gennimata’s (Pasok leader) campaign targeting women paid off as Pasok balanced its appeal in both genders, which was not the case in the recent past.
Education Level
Syriza and Golden Dawn performed best in voters with elementary (especially Syriza) and secondary education, while Potami and Centrists’ Union did better in more educated voters. The other parties were balanced in all three categories at percentages around their average.
Age groups
As in previous years, Syriza maintained its prevalence in the younger (18-40) and middle (41-59) ages, while ND had the upper hand in voters over 60 years old. More specifically, ND’s performance in younger voters is worse than that of January (it was then recorded at rates close to its average in the ages of 25-34) and better in the elderly. Syriza’s penetration in age categories is more balanced than in previous years, as in almost all age groups its percentage is close to the average (even at older ages Syriza recorded near 32%).
The penetration of Golden Dawn to young people, although important, seems somewhat mitigated in this election mainly because of good performance of other “anti-systemic” parties like the Communist Party, Popular Unity, and Centrists’ Union.
Occupation categories
Syriza dominated in employee categories – civil servants (42.9%), private employees (37.2%), compared to 24% and 22.7% respectively of ND – housewives, unemployed, and students. On the other hand, ND showed an above average dynamic in freelancers, business owners, farmers (33.8%, in the only sector that ND made promises) and pensioners. A strong presence in farmers was recorded for Golden Dawn (11.5%) and Pasok (10.7%). Impressive numbers for Golden Dawn in business owners (10.6%) and the unemployed (11%). Pasok earned a double digit (10.3%) in pensioners.
NO and YES voters
Syriza clearly won the battle of NO voters – 53.1% of them chose Syriza at the ballot – against other NO-supporting parties such as Golden Dawn (9.7%), the Communist Party (6.9%), ANEL (5.3% ) and Popular Unity, which got just 3.8% of the NO voters – a big failure for them.
Similarly, as expected, ND attracted the largest part of YES (60.2%), but that was not enough to reverse Syriza’s lead. Good performance in this audience was recorded for Pasok (12.1%), while Potami’s was mediocre (6.8%).
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