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by mjn 4841 days ago
The people were also consulted to an extent in Greece, though you might say the results were inconclusive. The series of 2012 elections were de-facto a referendum on whether to accept the bailout/austerity or not, since it was the main issue in the campaigns. There were also pro- and anti- parties on both the right and left, allowing people to make that choice independently of their usual political alignment (left voters could choose between PASOK and SYRIZA; right voters could choose between New Democracy and Independent Greeks). If you go by popular vote, the pro-bailout/austerity parties narrowly lost the May election (48-52%) and narrowly won the June election (51-49%).

There's a little bit of subjectivity in assigning those numbers, because a number of pro-bailout/austerity parties were trying as hard as possible to take up tough-sounding, qualified positions, e.g. in the first round Democratic Left was "less" pro- than the others, even though it eventually joined a coalition government that implemented the demanded conditions. So one could argue that Greek sentiment was more anti-bailout/austerity than the results implied, since some people voted for what they thought were moderate anti- parties who turned out to be grudgingly pro- in practice.