Greek election - January 25th 2015

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Supporters at the ND headquarters watching election returns:

http://whitepeoplemourningromney.tumblr.com/

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PASOK in single digits everywhere except Laconia (Sparta!)

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So what is the magic number for an outright majority? Around 36.8%?

That's what the chart posted earlier indicates. If that's the case, SYRIZA falling 1.5-2% short right now.

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Rhodope (Thrace) winning the anti-establishment prize - ND and PASOK together getting only 21.45%. Also SYRIZA's best region (52.73%)

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A minority government only works if at least one of the parties agrees to vote with SYRIZA on confidence motions though, right?

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A minority government only works if at least one of the parties agrees to vote with SYRIZA on confidence motions though, right?

Or abstain.

Hmm, interesting. I guess it's not really in any party's interest to have another election soon. Voters might rally to SYRIZA.

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I would think KKE would have quite a bit at risk if they were perceived to be the ones who brought down the most leftist government in modern Greek history. I know their remaining membership is extremely ideological/brainwashed, but they don't need that many defectors to risk falling below the threshold.

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There is also the possibility of luring a couple of defectors to Syriza and who says Pasok would risk another election. It would be a huge gamble.

Good point. Though it's hard for me to judge who is more partisan - KKE supporters, or those still voting for PASOK at this point...

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Tsipras may prefer 149/150 over 151/152. With the latter you give significant power to individual members of your party who are willing to make demands... plus there's the inability to blame other parties if things go poorly, as has been discussed previously.

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Tsipras may prefer 149/150 over 151/152. With the latter you give significant power to individual members of your party who are willing to make demands...

That's just as much the was in a minority government situation as with a 1 or 2-seat majority, tho.

Yeah, no offense to the OP but that's a dumb argument. That's like when people claim Anthony Kennedy is somehow more powerful than all the other Supreme Court judges. No, everyone's vote is going to be worth the same no matter what.

The Supreme Court analogy doesn't hold up - members of the court don't need to be responsive to voters, their party leaders, or anyone, to keep their power.

Insula Dei's point is fair though.

[Meeker]

Tsipras may prefer 149/150 over 151/152. With the latter you give significant power to individual members of your party who are willing to make demands...

That's just as much the was in a minority government situation as with a 1 or 2-seat majority, tho.

Yeah, no offense to the OP but that's a dumb argument. That's like when people claim Anthony Kennedy is somehow more powerful than all the other Supreme Court judges. No, everyone's vote is going to be worth the same no matter what.

The Supreme Court analogy doesn't hold up - members of the court don't need to be responsive to voters, their party leaders, or anyone, to keep their power.

Insula Dei's point is fair though.

It has nothing to do with the length of terms. We're talking about voting power. The influence of your vote does not change based on if you are a "swing voter."

Sure it does. An individual member of the majority party with a one seat majority has significantly more leverage to demand things than an individual member of the majority party with a 50 seat majority. He/she cannot be easily ignored in the former case but can be very easily ignored in the latter.

The same standard could be applied to the Supreme Court. If four justices want to issue an opinion but need to make concessions in it to get that fifth justice on board, that fifth justice has considerable power. But he'd have virtually none if six justices were already on board with the opinion.

[Meeker]

Tsipras may prefer 149/150 over 151/152. With the latter you give significant power to individual members of your party who are willing to make demands...

That's just as much the was in a minority government situation as with a 1 or 2-seat majority, tho.

Yeah, no offense to the OP but that's a dumb argument. That's like when people claim Anthony Kennedy is somehow more powerful than all the other Supreme Court judges. No, everyone's vote is going to be worth the same no matter what.

The Supreme Court analogy doesn't hold up - members of the court don't need to be responsive to voters, their party leaders, or anyone, to keep their power.

Insula Dei's point is fair though.

It has nothing to do with the length of terms. We're talking about voting power. The influence of your vote does not change based on if you are a "swing voter."

Sure it does. An individual member of the majority party with a one seat majority has significantly more leverage to demand things than an individual member of the majority party with a 50 seat majority. He/she cannot be easily ignored in the former case but can be very easily ignored in the latter.

The same standard could be applied to the Supreme Court. If four justices want to issue an opinion but need to make concessions in it to get that fifth justice on board, that fifth justice has considerable power. But he'd have virtually none if six justices were already on board with the opinion.

The four justices who have "decided" can change their vote at any time. So they have just as much power as the swing voter.

No, that's not correct. If one of the "decided" justices were to defect (or threaten to defect), they would gain more power. But the fifth justice, the "swing voter", would at the same moment lose power relative to where he had been, since he now can't credibly make the demands he wants in exchange for reaching a majority. And that defecting justice wouldn't have as much power at that moment as the original swing justice had.

Yes, they all have the same potential power, since any of them could potentially find themselves in the swing vote situation. But in practice, since some of them want the same outcomes at others, or some of them prioritize certain outcomes over other outcomes, they give up power to other justices who are willing to be amenable, if the correct circumstances are met.

This dynamic can also exist in a legislative body, although in a far more complicated way since there are usually more than nine members. But the difference between that dynamic and the Supreme Court dynamic is that the member who decides to make demands in a legislative body must weigh the risks (loss of their seat at the hands of voters or their party leaders) while a member of the Supreme Court doesn't need to weigh that risk.

This is straying far out of the topic of the thread though, so I'm going to let it rest.

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Surely Tsipras and his team thought this all through in the week or two leading up to the election? It seems unlikely he's making this decision on the fly, which leads me to agree with BK and Foucaulf.

It's somewhat reminiscent of Boehner's negotiating strategy on government funding and the debt ceiling during 2011-13.