The 2010 Regional Elections in Greece: Voting for Regional Governance or Protesting the IMF?

On 7 and 14 November 2010, Greece held its first elections for the regional level of representation. The regional elections, which were held concurrently with municipal elections across the country, were the result of the latest local government reforms. In 1986, the governing Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) created 13 administrative regions on top of the 54 prefectures. These administrative regions (‘peripheries’ in Greek) did not always overlap with the historical regions of the country since they were devised as development regions in order to implement the EUfunded Integrated Mediterranean Programmes (Hooghe and Marks, 2001: 196) and to attract funds from the Community Support Frameworks which followed suit. The regional secretary generals (similar to the prefects but unlike the mayors and the municipal councils) were appointed by the central government. In 1994, PASOK ‘municipalized’ and transformed the prefectures into a second-tier of local government by initiating the direct election of prefects and prefecture councils which received a limited number of competencies (Hlepas, 2010: 228). In yet another reform implemented by PASOK in the late 1990s, the municipalities received extra funding and competences after a compulsory amalgamation into 924 municipalities and 100 rural communes (see Hlepas, 2010: 230–235). With the return of PASOK to power in 2009 (see Dinas, 2010; Gemenis, 2010; Pappas, 2010) another compulsory amalgamation was initiated, this time reducing the number of municipalities to 325. Moreover, the prefectures were abolished and replaced by a regional tier of representation along the lines of the thirteen administrative regions. Each region acquired a directly elected governor (periferiarchis) and regional council roughly proportional to its population. The Constitution stipulates that political parties are not permitted to contest local and regional elections