By George Siakas*
The official article was published in the greek newspaper TA NEA on April, 13, in greek.
In the elections on May 26, 2019, 17 years old students vote for the first time. In fact, adults between 17 and 21 years old will be vote for first time in their life.
This age group has 500,000 people and it can affect the political correlations. For example, in September 2015, 160,00 votes were enough to get a party in Greek parliament. Also, the difference between SYRIZA and ND (the two biggest parties) was about 400,00 votes.
But this group of a half a million, although is a big, is not homogeneous. Some of its features are:
Political cynicism among young people. This feeling is a result of the phrases “They are all the same, nothing will be change, nothing can improve our lives”. In fact, political cynicism is magnified whenever political parties are failing their promises. The political inefficacy and apathy do not help young people to participate on elections.
The distraction of young people. The confidence of young people in political parties and political institutions is at very low level. Young people answer in public opinion surveys that will probably abstain of the elections. So, it is doubtful how many of the 500,000 will eventually vote.
Strong fragmentation and loose party matching. Young people can easily vote different parties either big either small ones. Many of them are undecided and others prefer small parties. In general, most of young voters are not coincide with any party in comparison with older voters.
Materiality values. Issues such as access to free audiovisual material from internet, the protection of personal data, values of social solidarity and integration are more important to new generation than the government’s achievements in economy or the political debate about taxes.
So, the vote of young voters is a difficult equation. These particular characteristics of them, make us reticent about the extent of abstention. However, the conduct of European elections along with the local ones, in which many candidates join, will probably strengthen their participation in the elections.
*George Siakas is the Research Director of Public Opinion Research Unit.
