(Note: This was the first round for local elections in municipalities and regions. The mayoral and regional governor candidates who won more than 50% of the vote in the first round are elected outright. For the remaining races with no clear winner there will be a runoff election between the two leading candidates. These will take place next Sunday together with the elections for the European parliament.)

Below are seven of the most important conclusions that can be drawn from yesterday’s electoral battle:

1. The pre-election polls and exit polls fell far wide of the mark in their predictions. In the case of the exit polls this appears to indicate the fluidity of the political scene, whereas distortions in the pre-election polls may have been the result of politically motivated manipulation of the results by pollsters (alleged by many in the run up to the elections).

Pre-election polls were forecasting that SYRIZA candidates in Attica and Athens would fail to make significant gains. They were wrong by a wide margin. The SYRIZA backed candidate for mayor of Athens, Gavril Sakellaridis, was forecast to come in 3rd with 12.5% of the vote but ended up neck-and-neck with the first candidate, incumbent Giorgos Kaminis (who ran independently but has a center left background) with 20% to 21%. Sakellaridis and Kaminis will face off next weekend with Kaminis the favourite.


In another surprise win, the SYRIZA backed Irini Dourou prevailed over incumbent Giannis Sgouros (the center-left candidate supported by PASOK and the Democratic Left) winning 23.8% to Mr Sgouros’s 22.1%. The runoff election between the two will be wide open. Mr Sgouros is likely to pick-up the voters who supported the center-right candidate Giorgos Koumoutsakos, while Ms Dourou will pick up voters who supported other left-wing candidates. That the center-right candidate trailed far behind in third place with only 14.1% of the vote is seen as a slap in the face to New Democracy from voters.

2. Voters the country’s most populous constituency rejected New Democracy. This result will be especially worrying to the governing party. While Antonis Samaras’s center right party prevailed in most of the regional races across the country, the fact that no New Democracy candidate made it above third place in either the race for regional governor of Attica, nor the Athens mayoral race means that the party could hardly claim victory. It is the first time in 40 years that no New Democracy candidate will be taking part in the second rounds of these two key races.

However defenders of New Democracy state that it was the presence of Nikitas Kaklamanis (a former ND backed mayor) running a renegade race against the official ND candidate Aris Spiliotopoulos that split the vote and led to the poor result for the party. Furthermore despite its success in Athens, the fact that SYRIZA could not make significant gains in the local elections elsewhere in the country bolsters the case that the left-wing party has failed to build the support that it hoped.

3. Golden Dawn increases vote share in big cities despite criminal charges.
Despite the criminal prosecutions pending against Golden Dawn and its candidate for mayor (MP and party spokesperson) Ilias Kasidiaris, the neo-fascist party made significant gains in Athens. The party which gained almost 7% of the vote in the June 2012 general election saw its candidate for mayor come in a close 4th with 16.12% of the vote in the mayoral race. In some districts Mr Kasidiaris polled as high as 20%. The party’s candidate for regional governor of Attica (who is also facing a host of criminal charges) also had a strong showing picking up 11% of the vote.

The neo-fascist candidates tended to better in the city districts where citizens are most concerned about illegal immigration as opposed to rural areas, indicating that this was one of the main factors behind the party’s support.


4. Shipowner Marinakis leads in Piraeus race – 2nd round pending.

The mayoral candidate, Giannis Moralis, who is supported by Vangelis Marinakis, one of the top 10 Greek shipowners and owner of Olympiacos FC – the country’s biggest football club, won the first round with 33.27% of the vote compared to the 31.3% received by the incumbent candidate Vassilis Michaloliakos.  The race will be decided in next week’s second round.

5. EU elections poll estimates a 5 point lead for SYRIZA.

A Kapa Research poll for Reuters estimates that the opposition party will lead New Democracy by 5 percentage points in the EU elections to be held in 7 days. If that estimate is confirmed next Sunday, then SYRIZA will be the big winner of the election and its low results in the local elections will be due to high abstention and the local characteristics of the vote, in which voters tend to support specific candidates rather than political parties.

(via Metapolls)

The SYRIZA leader is already attempting to cast the European elections as a ‘referendum’ on the Memorandum and Greece’s ‘voice in the EU’. While New Democracy has rejected the characterisation of the elections as a plebiscite, PM Samaras warned that there was a risk of the country ‘sliding back’ if SYRIZA prevails.

6. A referendum of the planned privatisation of the Thessaloniki water utility (EYATH) also took place in the city on Sunday despite desperate efforts of the government to prevent it. As was expected the result was an overwhelming rejection of the privatization of the utility with over 98% of voters voting 'No', leaving very little doubt as to where the citizens of Thessaloniki stand on the issue.

7. Rumours of voter disillusionment prove unfounded
60.88% of voters turned out to vote in the elections – i.e the same level of voter turnout in the 2010 local elections, demonstrating that fears that there would be high levels of abstentions were unfounded.