ND leadership election draws huge turnout

Outcome unclear after technical problems

New Democracy supporters converge on clerks at a polling station in Athens with handwritten applications for party membership that will allow them to vote. Problems with the online registration system caused delays.

It remained unclear last night who would be the next leader of the main opposition New Democracy as the deadline for party members voting for a new president was extended twice into the night following an unexpectedly large turnout, estimated at some 500,000 voters,and technical problems with the electronic system being used to register ballots.

If neither of the two main candidates for – former Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis and former Culture Minister Antonis Samaras – garner the minimum of 50 percent of the vote needed to secure victory, the third candidate, Thessaloniki Prefect Panayiotis Psomiadis, will withdraw from the race.

The two main candidates will then go head-to-head in a second round of voting on Saturday, December 5, to decide who will succeed Costas Karamanlis.

Voting continued late into the night yesterday as ND party members, and supporters wanting to register as members in order to cast their ballots, waited in line outside hundreds of polling stations across the country. Originally due to stop at 7 p.m., voting was extended to 8 p.m. due to problems with the electronic registering system, and then to 9.30 p.m. after the voter turnout reportedly overwhelmed electoral clerks. At 10 p.m. yesterday, citizens were still casting their votes at some polling stations.

The process of registering votes started smoothly at 7 a.m. yesterday but about three hours later the online system went down, obliging electoral clerks to ask voters to fill out handwritten forms. ND press spokesman Giorgos Koumoutsakos issued a statement, claiming that the state telecoms operator OTE had been responsible for the technical problems, a claim almost immediately rebuffed by OTE.

Television coverage showed long lines outside polling stations with several exasperated would-be voters telling the cameras that they had had enough and would go home. Psomidias was among those who could not vote on his first visit due to the technical problems. Speaking after casting his vote, Samaras appealed to those fed up with waiting not to go home without casting their votes. “Today hundreds of thousands of ND supporters are bringing about change,” he said. Bakoyannis also called on supporters to show “patience” so that “ND can send its message.”