May Election in Greece – Prelude to a showdown / Deadlock followed by a repeat election in July seems inevitable.

Greece is gearing up for its general election on May 21st, and forming a government is no easy task in a country with no tradition of broad coalitions. With a fragmented political landscape, and a proportional system governing it, the May election will allocate parliamentary seats to the parties that pass the 3% threshold in direct proportion to the votes they receive, without any bonus seats to the winner.

This proportional system, introduced by the former SYRIZA government in 2016, makes the formation of a majority government an impossible scenario, leaving the main players with two realistic options: forming a coalition government or heading to a repeat election, governed by a different law that allocates a bonus of up to 50 seats to the winner, in July.