Regional & Federal Studies

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The 2019 regional elections in Greece: Both

regionalized and nationalized

Yannis Tsirbas

To cite this article: Yannis Tsirbas (2021): The 2019 regional elections in Greece: Both
regionalized and nationalized, Regional & Federal Studies, DOI: 10.1080/13597566.2021.2000402

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REGIONAL AND FEDERAL STUDIES
https://doi.org/10.1080/13597566.2021.2000402

REPORT

The 2019 regional elections in Greece: Both

regionalized and nationalized
Yannis Tsirbas
Department of Political Science and Public Administration, National and Kapodistrian
University of Athens, Athens, Greece

ABSTRACT
In May 2019, regional elections were held in Greece, simultaneously with
municipal and European elections. The regional elections were placed right
at the end of the national electoral cycle and national elections were planned
to be held four months later. In general, the institutional and structural
setting was favouring a nationalized, second-order character of the 2019
regional elections. Nevertheless, most of the patterns identified in the
election outcomes point towards regionalization rather than nationalization.
Hence, the 2019 regional elections in Greece were both regionalized and
nationalized.

KEYWORDS Regional elections; Greece; electoral cycle; regionalization; nationalization

Introduction
On 26 May 2019, regional, municipal and European elections were simul-
taneously held in Greece. It was the second time of such a concurrence,
after 2014. However, it was the first time that these elections were held at
the end of the electoral cycle, since a parliamentary election was scheduled
to be held four months later, but later it was decided to hold them one
and a half month after the simultaneous elections of 26 May 2019, on July
9. This report examines the 2019 regional elections and compares them
with the respective European and national electoral contests.
Two rather competing approaches will be employed to analyze the out-
comes of the regional elections, namely the ‘second-order’ elections (SOE)
model (Reif and Schmitt 1980) and the regionalization hypothesis (summar-
ized and advanced by Schakel and Romanova 2018). The main argument of
the report is that the 2019 regional elections in Greece were of a combined
regionalized and nationalized character, notwithstanding the fact that their
institutional and structural setting, such as, inter alia, the limited regional
autonomy and the similarity between national and regional party systems,
were favouring a SOE or, in some respects, a barometer character.

CONTACT Yannis Tsirbas itsirbas@pspa.uoa.gr Themistokleous Street, 10678, Athens, Greece

© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 Y. TSIRBAS

Among the main SOE-effects were vote share wins for the centre-right ND
(New Democracy), which was the major opposition party in the national par-
liament, whereas SYRIZA (Coalition of Radical Left), the party in national gov-
ernment, lost vote share. These trends were not as visible in the national
election that was held six weeks after the regional election, which implies
that the regional election was not a ‘barometer’ for national trends. Other
outcomes in the 2019 regional elections point towards regionalization: terri-
torial heterogeneity in vote shares that can be related to differences in organ-
izational strength and particular issues that led to a highly politicized debate
during the campaign had a regionalized impact.
The report is structured as follows: firstly, the institutional context and the
main political actors will be presented; secondly, the theoretical background
will be introduced, and, finally the political context and the election results
will be analyzed according to a regionalization and nationalization
perspective.

The institutional framework and major political actors

The institutional framework
In Greece, local government consists of two levels, 325 municipalities (dimoi)
and 13 regions (periphereies). Regional governors and regional councils are
elected for a four-year term. The concurrence between European elections
and the first round of local and regional elections, which happened in 2014
and 2019, is stipulated by law. Every citizen over the age of 17 years has
the right to vote. Voters are automatically registered. Voting is mandatory
but no penalties are in place. Every citizen of a given municipality or
region over the age of 18 years has the right to run for as the position of a
councillor. For the position of Mayor or Regional Governor, candidates
must be at least 21 years of age.
Candidacies must be organized in lists. There is a 40% gender quota. It is
not allowed for political parties to have official party lists. Therefore, separate
lists are created in every municipality and region, with their own names and
logos, even though most of them are closely affiliated with parliamentary
parties. It must be noted that before the economic crisis and the correspond-
ing steep decline in trust in political parties (Verney 2014), candidates were
actively seeking official party endorsement. Nowadays, even in the larger
municipalities and in most of the regions, party affiliation of the candidates
is implicit, and most of them prefer to pass as ‘independent’. All elected
regional governors in 2019 were ‘independent candidates being supported
by’ a specific party, with the exception of one elected regional governor
who did not have an official party endorsement despite being a known
member of a specific political party (Ministry of Interior 2019).
 REGIONAL & FEDERAL STUDIES 3

In terms of the electoral system, both regional governors and mayors are
elected in line with the Two-Round System (TRS), meaning that if a candidate
does not win an absolute majority of 50% plus one vote in the first round,
then a second round is held a week later between the first two candidates
of the first round. Regions are divided in 4–13 constituencies which generally
correspond to prefectures (nomoi). Each constituency contributes a number
of 1–40 seats to the regional council, according to its population. Regional
councils are formed following the proportional representation system. No
electoral threshold is in place. The ballot for each list has the name of the can-
didate for the position of regional governor first, followed by the names of
candidate councillors for the particular electoral constituency. The number
of candidate councillors in each list matches the number of council seats of
the constituency. The maximum number of candidate councillors that can
be chosen by each voter ranges between one fourth and one fifth of the
total seats of the constituency.

Major political actors

In 2012, the first elections after the outburst of the economic crisis, the Greek
party system imploded and has been slowly returning to bipartyism (see
Tsirbas 2020). The two major actors of the 2019 elections were the governing
SYRIZA and ND which was the largest opposition party. SYRIZA was the major
partner of an odd coalition government formed along with the nationalist-
populist ANEL (Independent Greeks). The two parties had a common platform
against austerity and the two harsh bail-out agreements that the previous
governments, consisting mainly of ND and PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist
Movement), as well as some smaller parties, had signed with the country’s
creditors (the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and
the European Commission) in 2010 and 2012. Nevertheless, the SYRIZA-
ANEL government also signed a third bail-out agreement in 2015.
The third major actor was KINAL (Movement of Change), the new name of
the once prominent PASOK, which, along with ND, had been the two major
parties alternating in power from the fall of the Colonels’ dictatorship in 1974
until the eruption of the economic crisis, in 2009. Another traditional actor,
which has contested all major local elections, either municipal, prefectural
or regional, was KKE (Communist Party of Greece). The neo-Nazi Golden
Dawn (GD) had been a fringe party since its first appearance in the 1980s.
However, right after the outburst of the economic crisis, it became highly
visible, increased its influence and became the third strongest political
party in the Greek party system in 2014–2015, advocating nationalist, racist,
anti-immigrant ideas and engaging in militia-style violent activities. There
are no non-state wide parties in Greece.
4 Y. TSIRBAS

Brief theoretical background

A commonly used perspective to analyze regional election outcomes is the
second-order election (SOE) model (Reif and Schmitt 1980). A basic assump-
tion underlying the SOE-model is that national elections are being contested
in a first-order political arena, which dominates over second-order political
arenas, which can be found at the European and subnational levels. Hence,
SOEs, not having high stakes on their own, are subordinate to FOEs.
Shortly, the SOE model assumes lower turnout and more invalid/blank
votes than national elections, vote share wins for protest and small parties
and vote share losses for big and governing parties (Reif and Schmitt
1980). The SOE model also stresses the importance of the point in the elec-
toral cycle that an election is held, meaning that stronger SOE effects can
be found in second-order elections that are held further away from national
elections (Reif and Schmitt 1980).
The SOE model has been most often applied to European elections and
there are some studies that compare European and regional elections (Teper-
oglou 2016). Regional elections are more likely to induce greater turnout (Reif
1985, 16) and to have relatively greater importance than European elections
(Reif and Schmitt 1980, 10–12). Similarly, a study about second-tier local elec-
tions in Greece concluded that they are ‘quasi-parliamentary’ (Mavris 2003). In
Great Britain, Heath et al. (1999) concluded that local elections are ‘one and
three quarters’ elections, being more important than European elections.
Regional elections that are placed at the end of the electoral cycle, like the
ones under examination here, have been called ‘marker-setting elections’
(Oppenhuis, Eijk, and Franklin 1996, 310), meaning that they measure the
current national correlation of parties’ popularity. They are also called ‘barom-
eter elections’, in the sense that they function as reliable predictors of the
ensuing national elections, although their own outcome is difficult to
predict, contrary to what happens with SOEs (Schakel and Romanova
2018). Also, a bipolar party system, like the one forming in Greece, increases
the possibility of SOE effects (Schakel and Romanova 2018). Additionally, ver-
tical simultaneity of regional elections with other local elections tends to
decrease SOE effects, while horizontal simultaneity between different
regional elections tends to increase their SOE character (Schakel and Roma-
nova 2018). In sum, the nationalization of regional elections can take three
different forms: nationalization, second order and barometer (Schakel and
Romanova 2018). Whether a particular regional election belongs to one of
these different types of nationalization also pertains to the degree of simi-
larity between national and regional party systems.
All of the above approaches are mainly nationally-centred, in terms of their
focus and methodology (Schakel and Romanova 2018).
 REGIONAL & FEDERAL STUDIES 5

It is also worth exploring regionalization in regional elections. Moreover,

Skrinis and Teperoglou (2008; cited in Teperoglou 2016, 98) used the term
local political arena-LOPA, in a study comparing Greece, Spain and Portugal.
They found that local elections in these countries can constitute a distinct
political arena. Schakel and Jeffery (2013) analyzed the outcomes of almost
3000 regional elections and concluded that regional elections are elections
‘in their own terms’ (Schakel and Jeffery 2013, 17). Regional elections are
deemed regionalized when there are similar or higher levels of turnout com-
pared to national elections, SOE effects are minimal, and non-statewide
parties are electorally strong (Schakel and Romanova 2018). Also, regional
elections can be regionalized and nationalized at the same time (Schakel
and Romanova 2018). Another factor, which can affect whether regional elec-
tions in a particular country move towards a more regionalized or a more
nationalized character is the strength of regional authority. However, Greek
regions do not have much authority and centralization reforms have
decreased the authority for regions. The Regional Authority Index score for
Greece declined from eleven points in 2010 to 8 points in 2016 (Hooghe
et al. 2016).
Weaker electoral performance by statewide major parties at the regional
level could also imply a regionalized character of regional elections. For
example, Shields (2018) found that the territorial heterogeneity in regional
vote shares won by the Front National can be linked to the organizational
strength of the party across France.
In Greece, the SOE model applied rather well to the previous (2014)
regional elections, which were characterized by increased volatility, high
numbers of blank/invalid votes and increased influence of some smaller
parties’ candidates (Tsirbas 2015). The 2019 regional elections, however,
were unique, being the first elections of this kind officially happening at
the end of the national electoral cycle. The elections of May 2019 were con-
ducted under the awareness of the Greek voters that a national election
would ensue soon after.
It is clear from the above analysis that there are some prior factors, mostly
institutional in nature, which are deemed to impact the regionalized or natio-
nalized character of regional elections. In the case of the 2019 Greek regional
elections, five of these factors point towards a nationalized character, namely
horizontal simultaneity, limited regional autonomy, the increasing bipolarity
of the party system, the similarity between regional and national party
systems and horizontal and vertical simultaneity. Also, the positioning of
the regional elections at the end of the electoral cycle should increase the
barometer character of regional elections which is a form of nationalization.
In sum, from an institutional perspective, the regional elections under inves-
tigation were inclined to be nationalized.
6 Y. TSIRBAS

However, we are presented with a research puzzle. Given the limited

regional authority, the horizontal simultaneity with European elections,
the bipolar party system, and the close proximity of the next national elec-
tion, one would have expected the 2019 regional elections to be either
second-order and/or barometer elections with either strong SOE-effects
or similar outcomes as in the forthcoming national elections. Yet, the out-
comes were dissimilar (Table 3). The situation becomes even more intri-
guing because the European election results, which were held
simultaneously with regional elections, were more similar to the outcomes
of the national elections. This is a strong indication that the degree of
regionalization/nationalization of regional elections differs from that of
European elections.
In the remainder of the report I explore the extent of nationalization/regio-
nalization in the 2019 regional elections and discuss election outcomes and
their possible determinants, like turnout, electoral influence of specific
parties, the degree of similarity between regional and national elections
results, territorial cleavages, territorial vote heterogeneity, party organization
strength, and specific aspects of the political agenda. Ι argue that, despite the
fact that they were institutionally tilted towards a nationalized character, the
2019 regional elections can be conceived to be regionalized and nationalized
at the same time.

Regional election results: Nationalization and regionalization

A brief note on the political context
The SYRIZA-ANEL government’s ‘honeymoon’ period had ended very soon
after they got into office for the second time, in September 2015. Since
January 2016, SYRIZA continuously trailed ND at the polls (Metron Analysis
2018). The obvious reason was the fact that they implemented the third
unpopular austerity package, causing a blow to their credibility (Koliastasis
2020). Even when the SYRIZA-ANEL government managed to successfully
complete the bail-out agreement in 2018 and pull the country out of a suffo-
cating fiscal and budgetary control for the first time since 2010, they contin-
ued to trail at the polls. This disenchantment with the government, along
with a widespread public perception that ND was an almost certain govern-
ment ‘on hold’, as well as some specific events that might have detectable
regional effects, largely describe the election context.
The five parties with the most consistent presence in the 2019 regional
elections did not conduct nationwide campaigns for the regional elections.
Rather, they preferred that each regional list conducted their own localized
campaign and they focused on campaigning nationally for the concurrent
European election.
 REGIONAL & FEDERAL STUDIES 7

Election results
Turnout is practically the same across regional, national and European elec-
tions (Table 1), thus we have to look elsewhere to explain the differences
between elections. The percentage of blank/invalid votes was higher in
regional elections, indicating a SOE character (Table 1).
ND came first in 11 out of 13 regions at the 2019 regional elections
(Table 2). Twelve out of thirteen elected regional governors can be con-
sidered to be ND-leaning, if the winner of the North Aegean region is
added. This particular candidate was coming from the ranks of ND, but
chose to defy the official party cue, ran against the candidate endorsed by
the party and won. ND-affiliated candidates, either formally or informally,
also won in the two most important municipalities, namely Athens and
Thessaloniki.
It is the first time that a single party wins in so many regions in the short
regional election history of Greece (Table 2). The only region that was not
won by a candidate directly or indirectly supported by ND or coming from
its ranks in 2019 was Crete, which was won by a candidate endorsed by
SYRIZA and KINAL. The exception of Crete can be explained by its long-stand-
ing centre and centre-left political tradition since the 1910s, implying a long-
lasting territorial cleavage in Greek politics, which is apparent at the national
level as well.
In Attica, the biggest region and home of the capital city of Athens, which
traditionally has the greatest visibility and political importance, ND’s candi-
date dominated. It was the first time that ND won the Attica region. The
Mati town wildfire, which, in July 2018, claimed the lives of 102 people, is a
probable decisive factor for this outcome. Moreover, the state apparatus’
response was rather poor, while the SYRIZA-ANEL government generally mis-
handled the situation (Hope 2019). The major opposition of ND, along with its
affiliated news media were severely critical of the government and the issue
dominated the public sphere for a long time. Three weeks before the 2019
regional elections, a large broadcasting network aired a documentary
about this wildfire, in which several communications between high-ranking
officials of the fire department indicated an endeavour for a cover-up

Table 1. Percentage of Turnout and Blank/Invalid votes per election type, 2014/2015-
2019.
Turnout Blank/Invalid votes
2014/2015 2019 2014/2015 2019
Regional Elections, First round 61.56% 58.28% 7.13% 6.80%
European Elections 59.33% 58.69% 3.80% 4.46%
National Elections 63.94%a 57.78% 2.42%a 2.08%
Source: Ministry of Interior (https://ekloges.ypes.gr/en).
a
January 2015.
8 Y. TSIRBAS

Table 2. Regional election outcomes, 2010-2019.

2010 2014 2019
Regions Largest party % Largest party % Largest party %
Attica PASOK 24.1 SYRIZA 23.8 ND 37.6
Central Greece PASOK 39.0 ND 41.4 ND 39.8
Central Macedonia ND 43.2 Independent 32.8 NDa 62.0
Crete PASOK 50.3 PASOK 41.1 PASOK-SYRIZA 60.8
East Macedonia & Thrace PASOK 41.8 ND 34.7 ND 34.4
Epirus ND-LAOS 44.8 ND 50.8 ND 57.1
Ionian Islands ND-LAOS 30.4 SYRIZA 20.6 ND 29.6
North Aegean PASOK 36.3 ND 31.5 Independentb 24.4
Peloponnese PASOK-LAOS 41.7 ND-PASOK 43.2 ND 33.6
South Aegean PASOK 50.9 ND 35.7 ND 53.7
Thessaly ND 38.6 ND 42.9 ND 55.8
Western Greece PASOK 43.3 PASOK 23.1 ND 37.0
Western Macedonia ND 46.3 Independent 29.1 ND 52.1
a
The same candidate won as independent in the previous election.
b
ND Member, but the party supported another candidate.

(SkaiTV 2020). The documentary largely set the tone of the whole campaign
for Attica region. The incumbent regional governor of Attica, a prominent
member of the SYRIZA cadre, became the target of fierce criticism and was
deemed one of the major culprits of the disaster. The wildfire took its toll
on SYRIZA candidate’s performance, since the East Attica district, where the
coastal town of Mati is located, was the only one out of the eight regional dis-
tricts of Attica where SYRIZA’s candidate came third, instead of second as in
the other seven.
Likewise, ND won from the first round in Central Macedonia (62%) and
West Macedonia (52.1%). In East Macedonia and Thrace, the two first candi-
dates who proceeded to the second round were both coming from the
ranks of ND, amassing 65% between them (Ministry of Interior 2019) (only
the first candidate’s result is shown in Table 2). Although ND has been

Table 3. Nationwide party strength of parliamentary parties. Regional, European and

national elections, 2014-2019.2
May 2014 January May 2019
regional May 2014 2015 regional May 2019 July 2019
elections (first European national elections (first European national
round %)a election election round %) election election
ND 25.6 22.7 27.8 45.9 33.1 39.9
SYRIZA 17.7 26.6 36.3 20.0 23.8 31.5
PASOK/ 14.7 8.2b 4.7 10.7 7.7 8.1
KINAL
KKE 8.8 6.1 5.5 6.9 5.4 5.3
GD 8.1 9.4 6.3 3.7 4.9 2.9
ANEL 4.8 3.5 4.8 - 0.8 -
DIMAR 3.7 3.7 - - - -
Other 16.6 19.8 14.6 12.8 24.3 13.3
a
Source: Tsirbas 2015.
b
As ‘Elia’, a coalition between PASOK and several small parties of the centre-left.
 REGIONAL & FEDERAL STUDIES 9

traditionally strong in Macedonian regions, these overwhelming victories

suggest another region-specific effect. In June 2018, Greece and the former
Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia (fYROM) signed an agreement, known
as the ‘Prespa agreement’, which settled their almost three decades long
dispute over the official name of the latter and a series of other related
matters, mostly of historical and cultural nature. The agreed new name was
‘Republic of North Macedonia’ and most of the other issues were also
settled. This issue entailed a strong national identity dimension, especially
for the people of northern Greece, the greatest part of which is historically
called Macedonia. Although ND was part of the consensus reached among
major Greek political parties since 2007 for a ‘composite name with a geo-
graphical specification’ (Official Website of the Greek Prime-Minister 2019),
they chose to severely oppose the agreement. ND clearly intended to capita-
lize on the widespread anti-agreement sentiment and the corresponding
demonstrations being organized by nationalist grass-roots organizations,
far right-parties, and religious organizations, which were regularly attended
by several of ND’s most prominent cadres, including the vice-president of
the party himself. ND also flipped the region of Ionian Islands from SYRIZA,
as well as the region of Western Greece from KINAL (PASOK in 2014) (Table 2).
Table 3 presents the vote shares won by parties in regional, national, and
European elections held in 2014/2015 and 2019. It is interesting that ND won
12% more in the regional elections than in the simultaneous European elec-
tion and 6% more than the ensuing national election. In 2014/2015, ND’s vote
shares were much more similar between the three different elections. At the
same time, SYRIZA’s performance was worse in the regional elections than in
European and national elections, getting 4% and 12% less votes respectively.
For SYRIZA, this is a recurring pattern from 2014 to -2015, where they per-
formed much better in the January 2015 national elections compared to
the previous May 2014 regional and European elections. KINAL and KKE per-
formed better in regional elections than in any other type of elections both in
2014–2015 and in 2019, while GD’s more advantageous arena is the European
election. These findings indicate that the 2019 regional elections had a natio-
nalized character, serving as a barometer for the national election. At the
same time, the SOE hypothesis is also supported, because one of the main
SOE-effects is a protest-vote against the party in national government
(SYRIZA) that benefits the main party in national opposition (ND).
Additionally, the impressively poor performance of the governing SYRIZA
in regional elections could be explained by its organizational strength. With
few exceptions, SYRIZA does not have a roster of popular and efficient local
cadres present in all constituencies across the statewide territory. Character-
istically, although SYRIZA supported candidates in all 13 regions, they
managed to have a mayoral candidate even remotely affiliated to the party
in only 27 out of the 60 biggest municipalities and prefecture capitals
10 Y. TSIRBAS

Table 4. Vote territorial heterogeneity by major party, 2019.

ND SYRIZA KINAL KKE GD
Regional 0.28 0.53 0.52 0.32 0.38
European 0.14 0.24 0.26 0.48 0.24
National 0.12 0.16 0.35 0.42 0.30
Vote heterogeneity is calculated by dividing the standard deviation of vote shares by the average vote
share across territorial units (Schakel and Romanova 2018).

(Ministry of Interior 2019). They had fewer mayoral candidates than KINAL
(30), ND (50) and KKE (50), indicating a regionalizing effect.1 Another contri-
buting factor to the dissimilarities between different types of elections is the
fact that parliamentary parties do not form party lists for regional elections.
Another outcome, which also points towards a rather regionalized charac-
ter of regional elections, is the territorial heterogeneity of the vote. It is
evident from Table 4 that for the four out of the five largest parties, ND,
SYRIZA, KINAL and GD, their regional performance is more heterogeneous
than in any other type of election. Moreover, SYRIZA has the most heteroge-
nous vote shares in the regional elections than any other party.
From the above analysis, it is evident that the election results demonstrate
a combination of regionalizing and nationalizing factors despite the fact that
the institutional setting of the mutli-level electoral system is highly favour-
able for a nationalization of regional elections.

Conclusion
The 2019 regional elections were unique, in terms of their concurrence with
municipal and European elections at the very end of the electoral cycle. This
election report examined whether the regional election results were nationa-
lized or regionalized. The institutional context was favourable for nationaliza-
tion. However, the election outcomes had both a nationalized and
regionalized character, although most outcomes point towards the former
than the latter.
More specifically, the higher number of blank/invalid votes in regional
elections are characteristics of second order elections. This is an indication
of regionalization: voters in Crete vote for different parties in both regional
and national elections compared to other regions in Greece. On the other
hand, there are a number of outcomes which point towards a regionalized
character: The different vote patterns between the different elections for
both major (SYRIZA and ND) and smaller parties; the increased vote hetero-
geneity at the regional level compared to all other levels for all parties
except GD; the organizational weakness of SYRIZA at the local level and
the regionalized effects of the issues of the Mati wildfire and the Prespa
agreement. In sum, it is safe to assert that the 2019 regional elections in
Greece were both nationalized and regionalized.
 REGIONAL & FEDERAL STUDIES 11

Notes
1. There was no such difficulty in the European elections because they are held in
a single, nationwide constituency.
2. An analysis of municipal elections is not included due to the fact that their loca-
lized character and the preference of most candidates to run as ‘independent’
would require an extensive and detailed research outside the scope of the
present report.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ORCID
Yannis Tsirbas http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0048-5696

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