Fishing for votes from other parties

Having secured their core party audience during the campaign period, party leaders are now openly addressing the voters or potential voters of the other parties, seeking to win them over. With direct or indirect references, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras and PASOK/KINAL leader Nikos Androulakis are calling on supporters of their political opponents to choose them instead.

At the same time, the percentage of undecided votes remains high, so party staffs are looking for ways to attract their attention.

Mitsotakis repeatedly addressed PASOK voters several times during the campaign, separating them from the party’s leadership, and while campaigning in the town of Kastoria, northern Greece, he addressed far-right voters. The choice of town was not accidental, as the ruling conservatives are under pressure in northern Greece from smaller parties further right.

In the past few days, having made it clear that he sees no scope for a post-election coalition with socialist PASOK, Mitsotakis went a step further during a speech in Iraklio, Crete: “I don’t believe that aligning with SYRIZA is the path that PASOK’s friends want. Because they know well that while we may have been in different parties, together we resisted populism,” he told citizens, adding later that “the friends of PASOK also know that we joined forces with some of them in the great current that, four years ago, helped us turn a page,” he said, addressing an indirect invitation to the party’s voters.

In Kastoria, he addressed “our fellow citizens who may be looking toward parties and factions that move to the right of New Democracy,” asking them “to think about who are the real patriots with deeds and who are the fair-weather patriots. Because I defended our national interests, effectively and with dignity.” He then invited them “to fight this fight together” and “to claim all those votes which are still claimable.”

Two directions

Alexis Tsipras is attempting to open up his party in two directions, by addressing the PASOK audience and, more recently, New Democracy voters, while he even spoke about the voters of the now-defunct neo-Nazi Golden Dawn. His political clash with PASOK, which accuses him of trying to usurp the political heritage, slogans and symbols of party founder Andreas Papandreou to win PASOK votes, is well documented. In recent days, the president of leftist SYRIZA has sought to cause rifts within ND, taking advantage of possible rifts in the ruling party’s internal factions.

Thus, in a speech in Ioannina, northwestern Greece, he addressed “conservative citizens, conservative voters,” and referenced former conservative premier Kostas Karamanlis, who had criticized vested interests, and contrasted him with Mitsotakis, adding: “Addressing conservative voters here in Ioannina, I will ask them to think twice if they want to become accomplices. Because their party does not deserve it but, above all, this country does not deserve to allow arrogance, corruption and injustice to continue for another four years.”

The leader of SYRIZA also said on television that “our goal is for those people who would vote for Golden Dawn, to take them, to win them back from far-right and anti-democratic ideology and attitudes, and explain to them that it is not an anti-systemic thing to vote for Golden Dawn.”

In recent days, Tsipras has sought to cause rifts within ND, taking advantage of possible rifts in the ruling party’s internal factions

Winning voters back

For his part, Nikos Androulakis, in addition to buttressing his core audience to avoid leaks to other parties, aims to win back voters who opted for SYRIZA in recent years. In this context, his party often accuses Tsipras of seeking to usurp the political legacy of Andreas Papandreou. “PASOK is here, united, strong,” Androulakis said at a rally in central Athens, using the party’s historic slogan.

He added that “the party founded by Andreas Papandreou has returned to the political scene as a protagonist” to show who are the real “heirs” of the political space expressed by the historical leader of PASOK. “The stronger PASOK gets, the more uncertain the position of Mitsotakis,” he added, inviting centrist and center-left voters who oppose New Democracy to choose PASOK, its historical rival.

Voter movement

Just before election day, voter movements can make a significant difference to the results. Especially in the current pre-election period, where pollsters are consistently recording a high percentage of undecided voters. In the most recent Pulse poll for broadcaster Skai last week, the so-called “gray zone” (which includes undecided/blank/abstention voters) was put at 14.5%. It is a percentage that no party can ignore as managing to convince a significant part of these voters to vote could even reverse the election result.

In Alco’s most recent poll for broadcaster Alpha, the undecided totaled 11%. Considering that the gap between the two first parties – New Democracy and SYRIZA – is estimated in most polls at around 6%, one can easily understand the importance of this pool of votes.

Even more so since, in the final stretch before the elections, most parties have almost exhausted all possibilities of further rallying their own voters. For example, in the same Alco poll, New Democracy’s ability to rally voters was put at at 77%.

The largest percentage of the rest of the party’s voters, 11.5%, are undecided, while smaller percentages are looking at SYRIZA (2%), PASOK (1.5%) and Niki (3%), a newly founded conservative outfit.

SYRIZA has also managed to rally its voters to a percentage of 77%. Among previous SYRIZA voters, the undecideds come to 7% and any voter losses would go to New Democracy (3.5%), the Communist Party of Greece (3%), PASOK (2%), and MeRA25 (2%).