Greek legislative election, 2009

Greek legislative election, 2009

← 2007 4 October 2009 May 2012 →
All 300 seats of the Hellenic Parliament 151 seats needed for a majority
Registered	9,929,065 0.1%
Turnout	7,044,606 (70.9%) 3.3 pp
First party Second party Third party   Leader George Papandreou Kostas Karamanlis Aleka Papariga Party PASOK ND KKE Leader since 8 February 2004 21 March 1997 27 February 1991 Leader's seat Thessaloniki A Thessaloniki A Athens B Last election 102 seats, 38.1% 152 seats, 41.8% 22 seats, 8.2% Seats won 160 91 21 Seat change 58 61 1 Popular vote 3,012,542 2,295,719 517,249 Percentage 43.9% 33.5% 7.5% Swing 5.8 pp 8.3 pp 0.7 pp   Fourth party Fifth party   Leader Georgios Karatzaferis Alexis Tsipras Party LAOS SYRIZA Leader since 14 September 2000 9 February 2008 Leader's seat Athens B Athens A Last election 10 seats, 3.8% 14 seats, 5.0% Seats won 15 13 Seat change 5 1 Popular vote 386,205 315,665 Percentage 5.6% 4.6% Swing 1.8 pp 0.4 pp
Electoral districts won by ■ – Panhellenic Socialist Movement ■ – New Democracy
Prime Minister before election Kostas Karamanlis ND Elected Prime Minister George Papandreou PASOK

■ – Panhellenic Socialist Movement

Kostas Karamanlis
ND

George Papandreou
PASOK

Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 4 October 2009. An election was not required until September 2011.

On 2 September Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis announced he would request President Karolos Papoulias to dissolve Parliament and call an election. Parliament was dissolved on 9 September.

Voting was mandatory; however there are no sanctions or penalties for not voting.

A total of 23 parties participated in the elections. Six of them participated in at most two parliamentary constituencies.

Although pollsters were actively polling until 2 October their findings were no longer made public within Greece, in accordance with the electoral law.
The next set of published predictions were the election day exit polls, announced starting at 7 PM, 4 October.

The electoral law for this election specifies that:

Some pollsters are extrapolating election tallies based on their findings, and have publicized their final predictions on how many parliamentary seats each party will win:

According to the constitutional principle of the dedēlōménē, a party or a coalition needs a parliamentary majority of 151 total seats in order to form a government. In the eventuality that no party or coalition are able to secure 151 seats, another election will be called. For this occasion the electoral law specifies that the leading party will receive a 50-seat bonus.

The initial results of the exit poll conducted jointly by pollsters Alco, GPO, MARC, Metron Analysis, MRB, Opinion, and RASS were made public at 7 PM Eastern European DST:

The revised results of the exit poll conducted jointly by pollsters Alco, GPO, MARC, Metron Analysis, MRB, Opinion, and RASS were made public at 8:50 PM Eastern European DST. The margin of error claimed is less than 0.5%:

The statistical projections by Singular Logic and the Ministry of Interior, based on actual returns, were made public at 9 PM Eastern European DST. The margin of error claimed is 0.3%: