On a night filled with emotion and packed city squares, naysaying Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his “yes” vote rivals made their final pitches on Friday at bailout referendum rallies, as polls showed the two sides in a dead heat.
More than 40,000 people gathered at the two rallies — 800m apart — before today’s vote on whether to accept creditors’ proposals for more austerity in exchange for rescue loans, or reject the deal as a show of defiance against years of harsh economic austerity.
“This is not a protest. It is a celebration to overcome fear and blackmail,” Tsipras told a crowd of 25,000 in front of parliament, who were chanting “oxi, oxi,” (no, no).
Photo: EPA
Meanwhile, police said about 17,000 people gathered outside the nearby Panathenian stadium for the “yes” rally, waving Greek and EU flags and chanting “Greece, Europe, Democracy.”
Rallies for both campaigns were also held in 10 other Greek cities on Friday.
Tsipras is gambling the future of his five-month-old left wing government on today’s snap poll — insisting a “no” vote would strengthen his hand to negotiate a third bailout with better terms.
However, the high-stakes standoff with lenders this week saw Greece default on debts, close banks to avoid their collapse, and lose access to billions of euros as an existing bailout deal expired.
The drama remained high in the final hours of campaigning. The country’s top court stayed in session until the late afternoon before rejecting a petition to declare the referendum illegal, while party leaders, personalities, and church elders weighed in with impassioned pleas to vote “no” or “yes” in media broadcasts and on social media.
In a rare public declaration, 16 former armed forces leaders wrote an appeal to citizens to show “calm and national unity.”
A series of polls published on Friday at the end of a frantic week-long campaign showed the two sides in a dead heat, with an incremental lead of the “yes” vote well within the margin of error.
However, they showed an overwhelming majority of people — about 75 percent — want Greece to remain in the euro currency.
Much of the ambiguity arises from the complicated question on the ballot paper: “Must the agreement plan submitted by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund to the Eurogroup of 25 June, 2015, and comprised of two parts which make up their joint proposal, be accepted? The first document is titled Reforms for the completion of the current program and beyond and the second Preliminary debt sustainability analysis.”
Voters are asked to check one of two boxes: “not approved/no” and — below it — “approved/yes.”
“People don’t even understand the question,” Athens Mayor George Kaminis told supporters at the “yes” rally. “We have been dragged into a pointless referendum that is dividing the people and hurting the country.”
Greek Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis told Ireland’s RTE radio on Friday that an agreement with creditors “is more or less done” and that the only issue left is debt relief.
However, Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem rejected the idea pointing out that negotiations had been broken off.
“There are no new proposals from our side and, whatever happens, the future for Greece will be extremely tough,” Dijsselbloem said. “To get Greece back on track and the economy out of the slump, tough decisions will have to be taken and every politician that says that won’t be the case following a ‘no’ vote is deceiving his population.”
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