In Greece’s July 5 referendum, as currently planned, voters will be asked to vote “no” or “yes” on a convoluted question about the country’s creditors’ conditions for further bailout aid. How voters make sense of the ballot question could be decisive in determining the outcome. The referendum campaign so far is largely a contest to define the meaning of the question. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his leftwing Syriza party are seeking to convince Greeks that a “no” to creditors’ proposals would safeguard national dignity and strengthen Athens’s bargaining position for the next round of negotiations, without triggering an exit from the euro.
Opposition parties and foreign creditors, including the German government and the European Commission, are telling Greeks that they will be saying “yes” or “no” to Europe and its common currency.
The ballot paper is one of the more challenging that has ever been put to an electorate.
It reads: “Should the outline of the agreement submitted by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund at the Eurogroup of 25/06/15 and which is made up of two parts that constitute their unified proposal be accepted?” before naming two documents written by those three institutions from bailout negotiations in Brussels that broke down last Friday.
Full Article: Greek Referendum Hangs on Voters’ Understanding of Question – WSJ.