The first round of local elections ended with no clear winners and losers.
On the first Sunday we experienced surprises and unexpected results in many cases, but there was no serious political message sent: The goal of SYRIZA for a strong message to overthrow the governmental schemes was sent partially, since it failed to gain the electoral base of 2012, while New Democracy came undamaged from the attack unleashed by the opposition, maintaining its main forces in the other regions of Greece. However, it dealt a hard blow in the field of impressions since it did not manage to have candidates in the second round in Attica and Athens.

So, due to these election results all parties chose to keep a low profile. Both Samaras and Tsipras stressed that yesterday’s elections had a local and regional character and avoided being triumphant.

Since pollster findings outside the polling centers insist on giving SYRIZA the first place, with a difference of five points from ND in European elections, all political players prefer to wait and start preparing for the European elections.

Mr Tsipras stressed again that he considers European elections as a referendum on the memoranda imposed by government policy – although he completely forgot his original slogan “three polls one vote” – and it is interesting to see how and with what dilemmas Mr Samaras will answer the next day and if he will keep the same line as Evangelos Venizelos, who spoke about the risk of political instability if SYRIZA wins the elections.

Gains and losses

The parties recorded gains and losses now that the first round is completed in municipalities and regions.

– New Democracy has lost Attica region with a significant difference, but it can argue that Aris Spiliotopoulos did not pass to the second round because of Kaklamanis running against him resulting in loosing forces. Also, ND can boast some impressive percentages in some regions and sufficient results in some others. It mamnaged to go to second round in 12 out of 13 regions.
– SYRIZA managed to gain a significant edge with Rena Dourou in Attica region and hopes to win. Also, it managed to get Gabriel Sakellaridis to second round for Athens Municipality upsetting the estimates. SYRIZA also takes advantage of the fact that ND will not have candidates in the second round. However, SYRIZA does not go so well in other regions where it was expected to receive good results such as in Crete, Central Greece and elsewhere.

– PASOK seems to maintain the forces it already had. Giorgos Kaminis passes to the second round, as well as Yannis Sgouros, while Yannis Boutaris confirmed its prevalence in Thessaloniki. PASOK gains good results in other regions, such as in Crete and West Greece.
– KKE gets interesting percentage in major regions, such as in Attica, while Golden Dawn seems to maintain surprisingly its forces as the percentages of Elias Kasidiaris in Athens show

– DIMAR’s presence was not very strong and talked about Mr Kaminis and Mr Boutaris whose DIMAR supported during the elections