jakke:

So here’s how things are looking for the Greek election. They’re at 82% reporting, but most of the remaining votes are around Athens, Piraeus, and Thessalonika - all strong SYRIZA territory. So we can probably expect a slight shift towards SYRIZA, but no more than a seat or two.

I was going to do a big long post on the possibilities for coalitions and so on, but with this seat distribution there are basically just two possibilities:

1. ND and PASOK continue on as a pro-austerity pro-bailout pro-eurozone coalition with the bare minimum number of seats until someone defects and the coalition collapses.
2. A fresh round of elections gets called for next month.

There really aren’t any other feasible governing prospects here. Honestly I’m expecting #2, because a “grand coalition” style government that received just under a third of the total vote (and around a quarter of the total vote in the capital) would be perceived as having very little legitimacy and almost certainly would not last.

Jakke knows more about international politics than you do. In this case, Greece.