Exit poll: Socialists to win Greek election

ATHENS, Greece — The main opposition Socialists will easily win Greece’s parliamentary election on Sunday, as voters angered by a faltering economy and a string of corruption scandals turned against Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis’ governing conservatives, exit polls indicated.

Initial nationwide results, with just over 8 percent of the vote counted, gave the Socialists 43.3 percent and the conservatives 36.2 percent, while turnout was at 67 percent.

Led by former Foreign Minister George Papandreou, 57, the Socialists will gain 41-44 percent of the vote, according to exit polls for Greek TV stations. If the projection is confirmed, the Socialists would be able to form a government with at least a slim majority of 151 seats — and possibly as many as 159 — in the 300-member Parliament, after more than five years in opposition.

Karamanlis’ conservative New Democracy party is projected to finish in second place with between 34.3 and 37.3 percent of the vote, the polls said.

But party secretary Lefteris Zagoritis refused to concede defeat, saying it was too early to comment on the outcome.

“We must wait for the real results,” he said.

In the last elections in 2007, the conservatives got 41.8 percent and the Socialists 38.1.

The government’s credibility has been damaged by a series of financial scandals, including a land-swap deal with a Greek Orthodox monastery that cost the state more than euro100 million ($145 million) and forced two of Karamanlis’ close aides to resign.

Rising crime and authorities’ failure to contain widespread riots after the fatal police shooting of a teenager in December also undermined the conservatives’ position, which the global crisis finished off.

The Greek Communist Party, far right-wing LAOS and the small Left Coalition are expected to retain their representation in Parliament, while the Ecologist-Greens are hovering on the fringe of the 3 percent threshold for entry.

Socialist foreign policy spokesman Andreas Loverdos said Karamanlis “called an early election to take us by surprise, and ended up surprising his own party.” The conservatives have been behind in opinion polls for more than a year, and many senior officials advised Karamanlis against calling early elections.

The Greek economy is expected to contract in 2009 after years of strong growth, while the budget deficit will probably exceed 6 percent of economic output.

A new government will likely have to borrow heavily just to service the ballooning debt — set to exceed 100 percent of GDP this year — and keep paying public sector wages and pensions.

Karamanlis, 53, called the election halfway through his second four-year term, citing the need for urgent economic reforms. He advocates austerity with state salary, pension and hiring freezes.

Papandreou says a stimulus package of up to euro3 billion is needed to jump-start the economy. His Panhellenic Socialist Movement acknowledges this will mean additional borrowing, although Papandreou has pledged to limit that by reducing government waste and going after tax dodgers.

“I have always voted conservative, so I’ll do the same now but with a heavy heart,” voter Dimitris Razis, 37, said at an Athens polling station. “Karamanlis squandered his previous term, but on the other hand times are too difficult to entrust the government to Papandreou — I just don’t think he can deliver,” the engineer said.

Many conservative voters were angered by rising crime and the December riots, when anarchists rampaged through the capital and other cities, smashing shops and banks with little police intervention.

A small bomb exploded in Athens Friday, without causing injury, two blocks from the site of Karamanlis’ final campaign speech. A far-left group, Conspiracy Nuclei of Fire, claimed responsibility for the bombing, which caused no injuries.

Officials said voting took place Sunday without major problems. One man who changed his mind just after voting was arrested in a provincial town when he allegedly grabbed the box from officials and tried to remove his ballot.

Both Papandreou and Karamanlis are scions of political families that have ruled the country for most of the past half-century — in what has been described as a hereditary democracy.