Greek vote: Rise of protest parties?

Greece is voting in parliamentary elections on Sunday, with far-reaching implications riding on the result. 

The troubled European nation appears on the verge of electing the eurozone’s first anti-austerity party. 

Polls indicate the radical left-wing party Syriza is set to take the most votes, promising to renegotiate the country’s huge debt burden. 

The so-called troika of creditors – the EU, IMF and ECB – are adamant that won’t happen. 

It’s raising the prospect that Greece could default on its debt, or even leave the eurozone. 

Syriza party leader Alexis Tsipras told supporters in Athens: “No one, my friends, can frighten or blackmail a people that has been wounded, that has been betrayed, that has been humiliated and that’s why it is determined to take matters into its own hands.”

But speaking at a rival rally Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras appealed to voters not to waste efforts already made to clean up the economy. 

He said: “We eliminated the deficit. Greece no longer has a need for borrowing because growth has begun, unemployment has begun to recede.

“Of course, there is still a long road ahead of us but month by month the numbers are steadily dropping.” 

So will the parliamentary election serve as a referendum on austerity? Will a victory for Syriza mark the rise of Europe’s anti-establishment parties? And what are the wider implications for the global economy?

 

Presenter: Sami Zeidan 

Guests:

Stephen Barber – Senior research fellow at the Global Policy Institute and a Reader in Public Policy at London South Bank University 

Kostas Ifantis – Associate professor of international relations at the University of Athens

Vicky Pryce – Chief economic adviser at the Centre for Economic and Business Research