Next week could be a doozy for markets. From Reuters:
Greece’s anti-bailout opposition party Syriza appears to be gaining momentum with less than a week before Sunday’s snap election, moving further ahead of the co-ruling conservatives in three separate opinion polls.
Syriza, which wants to renegotiate a chunk of Greek debt and end austerity measures, saw its poll lead grow to 6.5 points on Monday, according to a survey for the University of Macedonia conducted for Greece’s SKAI Television, up from a 4.5 point lead shown by the same pollster last week.
Syriza would garner 33.5 percent of the vote, up from 31.5 percent, while Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ New Democracy party, which has pushed through unpopular reforms as part of an international bailout, stood unchanged on 27 percent.
A Syriza victory could trigger a standoff with Greece’s European Union and IMF lenders and unleash a new financial crisis.
The Syriza platform is to say no to the IMF across the board, tell Europe where to go and drop out of the euro if pushed. However, the leader, Alexis Tsipras, has made these threats before and rolled over in an attempt to form a coalition post the last election.
This is likely another bluff to secure better terms.
