The returns from yesterday's Greek elections are an accident waiting to happen. The main center-right party, the New Democrats (after getting used to that being the socialist party's name in Canada, seeing right-of-center Dippers is odd), got a 19% plurality and the 50 bonus seats that go with coming in first; that gives them 108 seats. The PASOK socialists who had been in charge got 41 seats with a 13% showing, giving the grand coalition of pro-Euro parties 149 seats.
Bad news for them; the legislature has 300 seats. As Agent 86 used to say, "missed it by that much." 151 is a majority.
The Democratic Left is a pro-Euro party that might put them over the top, but getting folks to the left of the Socialists to agree with the Greek Dippers is a tall order, like getting Bernie Sanders and Paul Ryan to agree on a budget.
Everyone else is "anti-austerity" if not outright anti-Euro. You have 78 votes on the AA left Syriza and Communist), 54 seat on the AA right (Independent Greeks and the nativist Golden Dawn) and 19 from the Democratic Left. Syriza came in second, and that means they'd get a shot at forming a government if the Dippers fail to get 'er done.
There isn't a coherent center, nor a coherent right. A second election might see Syriza get first place and be in position to get a rejectonist left majority were they to have the 50 seat bonus.
That's more important than Hollande's win in France. You might see some capital flight from France if Hollande holds to a big tax hike on millionaires; with open borders within the EU, professionals that make big bucks might opt to ply their trade elsewhere within Europe. France is going to need to either reel in their deficit or give the middle-digit salute to the Euro, and they now have a Socialist having to call Bob Rae for advice on how not to cut a budget and be a good socialist at the same time.
Greece has all but got its middle-digit extended, unless the establishment parties can bring the Democratic Left on board and patch together a pro-Euro majority.
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