Participating in the Greek Elections.

 And the day came when I could exercise my franchise in the Greek general elections for the first time. Great excitement since it was the first time I was going to vote in years as I had lost my vote in Britain through prolonged absence.

 Here we initially select the party we want and on the selected ballot  sheet, you mark your cross against three of the named candidates there. Now once your ID has been checked against the electoral list for that specific venue, one of the presiding officers hands you a sheaf of papers representing the organisations presenting candidates for selection. There were 36 in all: 27 parties, 8 alliances and 1 independent, so that is one sheaf of paper you’re dealing with! 

 Below you see the proliferation of Communist parties and their respective candidates – just to give you an idea of the political complexity of it all!

                                      

A friend of mine, a Greek lady, said her method of selection was to put a cross against all the lady candidates! Now I must admit to being ready to exercise my selection on similar gender bias criteria, but much to Z’s amusement, I was taking this seriously.  I checked out each candidate’s profile, studying political form, you might say. But two of the lady candidates did not have a readily accessible profile. So that was that – no projection, no selection.

Now at the polling station, I was presented with difficulties: all I had to do at first was select my chosen party, then put a cross against my preferred contenders. But …. I couldn’t find my party paper. :o  One of the crazy options on offer, incidentally, – a Screaming Lord Sutch equivalent – was the KOTES – chickens – party. Their goal is to achieve freedom for smokers!                                               

So there I am, frantically searching among all these papers and I cannot find my party of choice! Just too much of a give-away to go out and ask for the papers for Party X ☹

 On my third shuffle through I find it – at the very end and kind of adhered to the penultimate sheet. So, I speedily place my crosses on it, place it in the envelop and seal it, while jettisoning all the rejected party voting slips into a vast plastic bag. Now they will be recycled, but what a huge waste of paper.

Deed done, I emerge smiling, happy to have done my civic duty. Although the New Democracy party is credited with a ‘landslide victory’ and an ‘earthquake triumph’, it still did not  achieve the majority required to form a government and so on June 25^th we have a second round of elections!