A Left Wing Country with a Right Wing Government?

Well, New Democracy may have been re-elected but this little corner of Greece remains firmly PASOK Green. For those who are interested, have a look at the map of the election results provided by the Athens News.

Watching the election results on television last night a curious thing struck us. Although once again the centre-right party has been voted in, albeit with a smaller majority than last time, if you add the percentages won by the other left wing parties to PASOK, Greece is actually still a left wing country with 51.29% of the electorate voting for the left. KKE, the Greek Communist party did better than usual, no doubt collecting some of the votes that PASOK lost, but LAOS, the far right, did not gain as many votes as was feared.

If the change in electoral law is passed that permits Diaspora votes through Greek embassies and consulates comes into effect in time for the 2011 election, the results for the next election could be very interesting indeed.