GLYFADA, Greece — Katerina Georgiou, 64, who used to own a private school, says that she will probably act out of fear when she decides who to vote for in Sunday’s general election.
Fear that her pension, already cut, will be cut some more. Fear that Greek banks will collapse. Fear that if she makes the wrong choice, Greece will be thrown out of the European Union.
“Everyone is scared,” she said recently. “All of our friends are taking their money out of the bank, keeping it I don’t know where. We don’t have any left, so we aren’t doing that.”
After five years in which the country’s economy has shrunk by 25 percent and the number of jobless has risen far beyond what its creditors ever predicted, many Greeks, like Mrs. Georgiou, say they are struggling to keep fear at bay as they go to the polls for the third national election in three years.
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Nonetheless, some Greeks are turning away from both of the leading parties, saying that they would feel safer if the winning party was forced to form a coalition.
In his bike shop recently, Lefteris Frangos, 37, said he was still undecided but was inclined to vote for another party in hopes it would become part of the governing coalition. Fear, he said, was everywhere in Greece today and one of the reasons he was drinking tea, not coffee, on a recent morning. “In this situation,” he said, “you need to take care of your nerves.”
A version of this article appears in print on January 24, 2015, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: After an Anxiety-Filled Campaign, Greek Voters Consider a Turn to the Left. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
