ATHENS — Greeks streamed to the polls on Sunday in a pivotal election that was expected to usher in the first anti-austerity government in Europe, reflecting years of economic hardship, raising questions about Greece’s place in the continent’s currency union and leaving financial markets on edge.
The left-wing Syriza party, led by a young firebrand, Alexis Tsipras, reached election day with small but consistent leads over the governing center-right New Democracy party of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in pre-election opinion polls as people stood in lines to vote across the nation.
“Democracy will return to Greece,” Mr. Tsipras, 40, said as he cast his ballot at an Athens voting center mid-morning, surrounded by a phalanx of cameras. “The message is that our common future in Europe is not the future of austerity.”
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Vassilis said he used to vote New Democracy, but now planned to vote for the Independent Greeks, a fringe party, saying he did not agree with all of Mr. Tsipras’s positions. The austerity overseen by Mr. Samaras, including a reduction in Vassilis’s pension and new housing taxes, had driven him into dire financial straits, he said. “I need to work just for a plate of food.”
Christina Polychronidou, 39, came to the same place with her husband and young daughter to vote. She would not reveal her choice, but, she added, it wouldn’t matter much anyway. “Nothing will change,” she said. “Tsipras will stay on the same course that Samaras did. If you have Merkel against you it’s very tough to change.”
