Greeks fed up with austerity voted yesterday in elections that could decide their future in the eurozone amid unprecedented external pressure not to vote for a radical leftist party.
About 9.8 million Greeks began voting in a showdown between the conservative New Democracy party and the anti-austerity SYRIZA party that has spooked European leaders and the markets.
“I hope that the vote will lead us to the formation of a stable government that will immediately address the problems troubling the Greek people,” Greek President Carolos Papoulias said after casting his vote.
Photo: Bloomberg
The ballot opened smoothly, but later a prominent TV station, Skai TV, was evacuated after an apparent bomb threat.
“Somebody threw a grenade outside the station and the building has been evacuated until the police bomb squad can examine it,” a staff member said.
It was not immediately clear if the grenade, which failed to explode, was live, a police source said.
The man at the center of international concern, SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras, said his side would win and Greece would keep its place as an “equal” member in a “changing” Europe.
“We have conquered fear,” Tsipras said after casting his vote in the working-class Athens district of Kypseli, an apparent reference to criticism that his threat to scrap a multibillion-dollar EU-IMF loan agreement endangers Greece’s eurozone membership.
Greek newspapers said the vote was the most critical since the end of military rule in 1974, as conservative leader Antonis Samaras said a “new era” would begin for the recession-hit eurozone state today.
“Today, the Greek people speak. Tomorrow, a new era starts for Greece,” Samaras said in his hometown of Pylos in the southern Peloponnese Peninsula.
“We must have a strong united front and international credibility to achieve the best for Greeks, inside the eurozone, whilst keeping all that is positive in the loan agreement, all that is positive about the country’s European character,” Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos said.
Venizelos is seen as the most likely partner for the conservatives in a coalition government.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday said it was “extremely important” for Greeks to elect lawmakers who would respect the terms of the bailout, which Tsipras says will be “history” today.
Germany’s Bild newspaper added to tensions ahead of the vote with an open letter telling Greeks their ATMs had euros only because “we put them there.”
“If the parties who want to be through with austerity and reforms win the election and contravene every agreement, we will stop paying,” it said.
Tsipras says that the mood in Europe is shifting against austerity and that the EU and IMF would not want to risk a Greek eurozone exit that would send shockwaves through the global economy.
Samaras wants a more moderate renegotiation of the bailout deal and says that a vote for Tsipras could bring back the old drachma currency.
Polls show an overwhelming majority of Greeks want to keep the euro.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique