With just over ten days to go until the elections on January 25th, all of the polling data points to a clear win for SYRIZA.
However a key question is whether the leftist opposition party will obtain enough momentum to secure an outright majority, winning 151 seats or more in the 300 seat parliament. That would enable it to form a single-party government. Anything less than an outright majority and Alexis Tsipras would have to partner with one or more of the smaller parties in order to establish a government.
Curiously, a determining factor may not be the ultimate percentage of the vote garnered by SYRIZA, or even the margin of difference separating it from New Democracy.
Whether SYRIZA is able to secure an outright majority will depend on the percentage of the vote that goes towards parties that do not even make it into parliament – that is parties that fail to meet the 3% threshold established by Greek electoral law.
Overall, the higher the percentage of the vote that goes to parties that fail to enter parliament, the lower the percentage SYRIZA will need in order to secure a majority in parliament.
According to analysts, under the current electoral law for every 1% of the vote that goes to parties that fail to enter parliament, the percentage required by the leading party to obtain an absolute majority drops by 0.4%.
If voters only cast their ballots for parties that enter parliament, then SYRIZA would require 40.4% of the vote to win an outright majority.
However that is effectively impossible. Under a more realistic scenario, if 5% of the vote goes overall to parties that fail to meet the 3% threshold, then SYRIZA would need 38.4% of the vote to control parliament outright.
More specifically:
| Percentage (overall) of the vote won by small parties | Percentage required for SYRIZA to win outright majority |
| 6% | 37,2% |
| 7% | 36,8% |
| 8% | 36,4% |
| 9% | 36.0% |
| 10% | 35.4% |
Polling experts state that in most elections the percentage of the vote that usually goes to these smaller parties is in the 5-6% range. If that’s the case in this election, then SYRIZA will likely struggle to win an outright majority.
However this year much will depend on the performance of George Papandreou’s Movement of Democratic Socialists and the Independent Greeks party. Both parties are polling at the 2.5% - 3% range and may or may not obtain the 3% required to enter parliament.
If both parties fail to enter parliament, but still obtain percentages close to 3%, then the overall percentage of the vote going to non-parliamentary parties could rise to 10% or higher.
That would leave SYRIZA only requiring about 35% of the vote to win an outright majority, a result which is eminently more doable.
Even PASOK could fall just shy of the 3% level, according to some polls, and not elect any members to parliament for the first time in its 40 year history, although this seems more unlikely.
Strong showings by the Democratic Left and the radical group ANTARSYA could also work in SYRIZA’s favour.
It is worth noting that in the May elections of 2012 amid the general electoral collapse of the traditional political forces, the percentage of the vote going to parties kept out of parliament rose to 19%, meaning that only 32.8% of the vote was required to win a majority.
In those elections New Democracy had come top with 18.85% followed by SYRIZA on 16.78%. In the repeat elections a month later the electorate became much more polarized between the two leading parties.
New Democracy won 29.66% of the vote comaperd to SYRIZA’s 26.89%. The smaller parties below 3% won only 6% overall.
This year the electorate is highly polarized between New Democracy and SYRIZA. However at the shallow, murky end of the pool (and the most difficult to predict) small wild cards may play an outsize role.
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