Greek politicians are courting an estimated 430,000 generation Z voters, some as young as 16, as the country braces for a general election, taking to TikTok and YouTube to woo what could be a key demographic.
A smile crosses Stefanos Tsiandis’s face when talk turns to a poll that has been as low-key as it is unpredictable. As a first-time voter, the 19-year-old knows exactly which party he’ll be rooting for when he casts his ballot on Sunday. But that, he adds, is rare. “Our vote counts, and mine will go to Pasok,” says the economics student, proudly posing with the flag of the centre-left party he has just waved vigorously at a campaign rally beneath the Acropolis. “It’s disgusting how they’re making all these promises to win our support. It says so much about our political system.
“It’s really exciting. Maybe a lot are undecided, but you can be sure they won’t be backing the [centre-right] government.”
For the first time in years, Sunday’s election will be held under a system of proportional representation, making it nigh impossible for any party to garner the majority in Athens’ 300-seat parliament necessary to win outright. With an inconclusive result likely, a follow-up poll in early July, conducted under an electoral system that would distribute bonus seats to the winner, is seen as inevitable.
But less than three months after 57 people died in central Greece after a head-on collision between a freight train and a passenger train that many believe could have been avoided, the race in which Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s centre-right government is defending its majority is tighter than expected. And with surveys estimating as many as 13% of the 8.5 million-strong electorate still undecided, every vote counts.
“Because the train was full of students returning from vacation, the accident unleashed a huge emotional reaction among that segment of the population,” said the veteran political commentator Pavlos Tzimas of the mass protests that followed the disaster. “And women and young Greeks account for a sizeable proportion of the undecided bloc.”
In the more than 40 years since Tzimas began observing general elections in Greece, the run-up to Sunday’s poll marked the first time, he said, that political party leaders had sought to appear on lifestyle TV chatshows that were popular with both demographics. “Their vote could make a difference, and politicians are nervous about what they will do,” he said. “We’ve seen them vying with each other to get interviews on shows they might ordinarily never appear on.”
New Democracy, Mitsotakis’s party, has led the polls despite its six-point edge over Syriza, the leftist main opposition party, being dented by a wiretapping scandal and the February rail crash – a tragedy that took a wrecking ball to the government’s reformist narrative.
Forced on to the defensive, the 55-year-old leader was compelled to delay the election after acknowledging that the accident could have been prevented if proper safety measures had been enforced.
Only three EU countries allow people under 18 to vote. In Greece, 17-year-olds (and 16-year-olds who turn 17 in the election year) were enfranchised under legislation passed by Alexis Tsipras, the Syriza leader catapulted into office on a radical agenda in 2015.
Tsipras, like Mitsotakis, has also taken to TikTok and YouTube to woo first-time voters. While the government has pledged to hand out a €150 (£130) youth pass – announcing the “coming of age” benefit barely two weeks before the poll – Syriza has sought to entice the younger generation by promising to scrap tough university entry requirements. Low-interest loans for home purchases for 18-39-year-olds have also been announced.
“I hope they keep their promises,” says Stella Papaconstantinou, who has yet to turn 17 but because she was born in 2006 will be able to cast a ballot on Sunday. “I haven’t decided who I will vote for. I’ve been trying to watch the news to be able to make a decision, but in all honesty am not sure I should have been given this right at this age. I would have liked to have been a bit more mature.”
Mitsotakis has sought to emphasise the economic headway that Greece has made under his stewardship since the height of its debt crisis and near-ejection from the euro zone. In a campaign that has projected his party as the only stable option in an increasingly uncertain world, the country’s spectacular return to growth, backed by falling joblessness, a rebound in tourism, foreign investment and digitisation of the public sector have all been highlighted. “I’ve always believed that two four-year terms are required for someone to change Greece,” he said last month, admitting that mistakes had been made since he assumed office in July 2019.
Tsipras, 48, has by contrast highlighted the nation’s democratic backslide under Mitsotakis, calling the wiretapping scandal that included security services eavesdropping on Pasok’s leader, Nikos Androulakis, a disgrace. Tsipras has vowed to combat inflation – blaming the cost of living crisis on vested interests – and improve the wages of the public sector and health workers.
“Greece has Bulgarian wages and British prices,” he said last week.
Androulakis, who could emerge as kingmaker, has refused to back either Mitsotakis or Tsipras in a coalition government.
But few pledges appear to light the fire of younger Greeks. With youth unemployment nudging 25%, many say that if they can, they will join the 500,000 who fled overseas during the debt crisis.
In a campaign that has been noticeably bereft of debate about the future, despite Greece’s ageing population, pollsters believe it will be a miracle if the vast majority of newly enfranchised Greeks vote at all. “We’re the lost generation,” said Maria Tsiandis, at 22, Stefanos’s elder sister. “First there was the crisis, then the pandemic; so much lost time and dreams that no government can make up for.”
