·
Friday is the last day of pre-election period,
but is still unclear which political party will end up first, and how many
political parties will surpass the 3% threshold, in order to enter the Greek parliament.
·
Four more polls were published showing a neck
and neck battle between SYRIZA (left) and New Democracy (centre right). The
three out four (ALCO, Kappa Research and Pulse) were showing a narrow lead of
SYRIZA, which varied between 0.3-0.6%. The fourth one recorded a narrow lead of
New Democracy by 0.3%.
·
Golden Dawn’s (neo Nazi party) leader
Michaloliakos stated in an interview that his party accepts the political responsibility but
not the criminal responsibility, of the Fyssas’ assassination, which occurred
in Sep 2013.
·
According to local prominent newspaper Kathimerini’s
sources, a new debt sustainability rule has already been decided and will apply
soon after an agreement between Greece and its European partners. More specifically, there will an agreement that the annual spending on servicing the debt should not
exceed 15% of the country’s gross domestic product.
·
the Bank of Greece reduced by 200 mios euros, the
ceiling of Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA), due to gradual improvement of
liquidity conditions. The ceiling of ELA is currently
at 88.9 bios euros; it was at its highest level in July 22nd
(91.2 bios euros).
·
The General Secretariat of Public revenue will
pull the plug of those enterprises which avoid paying VAT by carrying out fictitious
triangular transactions. State revenues during the period Jan-Aug, were recorded
lower than target, by approx. 4 bios (-12.4% vs. target).
·
According to ELSTAT, Greece’s unemployment was
reduced to 24.6% during the 2nd quarter of 2015, vs. 26.6% of
previous quarter and 26.6% in the 2nd quarter of 2014. According to
Ministry of Labour, Greece’s population decreased by 300,000 during the period
2009-2015.
·
The private construction was reduced by -15.1% in
June 2015 due to political uncertainty. However, official data show that the
private construction increased by 7.7% during the period Jan-Jun.
·
The number of new cars has increased by 20.1% in
August 2015. This figure comes just after the dramatic decrease of -23.9% of July
2015 due to skyrocketing political uncertainty.
·
The
Federal Reserve kept its policy interest rate unchanged, showing reluctance to
end an era of record monetary stimulus in a time of market turmoil and rising
international risks.
·
The number of policemen and soldiers who have been
killed in Turkey since a ceasefire with Kurdish militant group the PKK broke
down in July, has now risen to more than 120. The neighboring country stands on
the brink of chaos.
Risk assessment: the on-going polls show the return of
bipartisanship. It appears that the battle for the first position which offers
50 additional parliamentary seats, increase the popularity of two main rivals to levels above 30% each. As it was expected, the increase of concentration occurs at the expense of
smaller political parties.
In addition,
it is still unknown what will be the implications of the statement of the leader of neo Nazi party Golden Dawn as regards the acceptance of the political
responsibility of Fyssas’ assassination. At the moment, GD appears to be
the third political party in polls. Although GD's leadership pursue an extreme
political agenda, its popularity represents mainly a protest vote.
In addition, there
are three political parties which struggle to surpass the threshold of 3% and enter
in the next parliament i.e. a) Independent Greeks (former Tsipras government
ally), b) Centrist Union (a populist but pro Europe, one-man-show party) and c)
Popular Unity LAE (new Eurosceptic party which was formed after SYRIZA’s
rupture).
According to
Greece’s elections system, the higher the total number of votes of political
parties which are left out of parliament, the lower the percentage
that is required for the winner in order the first political gain parliamentary majority.
If all these
three small political parties don’t manage to enter parliament (which is highly
probable), the first political party won’t only get the 50 additional MPs but also
gain the majority of next parliament, with percentage of votes between 32-35% only.
In any case,
all polls suggest that the next Greek government will be more
centrist and more stable, compared to the previous one. Last but not
least, all polls suggest that the next composition of Greek Parliament will
better match the pro-European stance of Greek society and that the local
Eurosceptic movement may
face a humiliating defeat.
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