To Greek Village Family, No Getting Around Past Marinis Skouros voting in Touthoa, an isolated mountain village four hours from Athens. On Election Day, descendants of the 30 or so grandparents and parents still living there returned for the vote. TOUTHOA, Greece - Kostas Kouris stood in the scorching heat in this isolated village on a mountain astride the verdant Peloponnesian Peninsula, lines of worry etched across his brow. Like many people in this angst-ridden country on Sunday, he had waited until the last moment to cast his vote in Greece's most pivotal election in recent memory. He was not at all certain that the outcome would change Greece's destiny for the better, especially after Antonis Samaras, the leader of the New Democracy party, whose campaign played on fears of a return to the drachma as the national currency, looked set to claim victory. "We're only in the beginning of a new problem," Mr. Kouris, a trim, thoughtful man, said under the stone eaves of his parents" ancestral home after making a four-hour trek from Athens to cast his ballot. This could mean continued instability, because even if he forms a coalition, he may not be able to govern for more than a few months. The vote "leaves a bitter taste in our mouth," added Mr. Kouris, who said he had made a last-minute decision to vote for the Pasok party in the hope its leaders could form a coalition with other parties. If we don't have a strong government, the insecurity and fear continues, and what does that offer people? How about faith for the future, or hope - where is this component now? That question was in the air on Sunday in this otherwise quiet hamlet, which sprang to life on Election Day as descendants of the 30 or so grandparents and parents still living here gathered to participate in the latest expression of democracy that they hoped would deliver the country from its troubles. Far from the grim atmosphere gripping Athens, Touthoa teems with silver-tipped olive groves, sun-kissed vegetable gardens and flocks of sheep, living testaments to the centuries-long natural wealth of this resilient nation. It would seem easy for residents here to feel removed from the crisis that has racked the seat of government since the last elections, on May 6, left a vacuum in Greece's leadership and threatened the country's future within the euro monetary union. More than half of Greece's 11 million people live outside big cities, many in rural towns like this one. But the generations of families that gathered Sunday in Touthoa, founded by the ancient Greeks on a limestone cliff along a mythic river by the same name, were far from disengaged. Before the 1980s, almost everyone in the town voted for New Democracy. For the last 30 years, the vote has been about 70 percent for Pasok and 20 percent for New Democracy, with the rest supporting splinter groups. On a patio, neighbors got together hours before the voting booths closed, a glass of tsipouro in one hand and worry beads clicking in the other, and expressed their concerns in a remarkable intergenerational debate. Apostolis Apostolopoulos, Mr. Kouris's cousin, sat down with the aid of a wooden shepherd's cane and threw himself into the conversation. A village elder, Mr. Apostolopoulos said he had voted for Pasok, reminiscing about how the party had expanded Greece's middle class by bringing growth and jobs to forgotten villages like his decades ago. "But with that also came a big, corrupt government" that saddled Greece with the tawdry legacy that it has today, he said. Worse, Mr. Apostolopoulos added, Greeks used to be hardworking, but had become passive since the country joined the European Union in 1981. Many people, from farmers in the countryside to those in seats of power, used subsidies sent by Brussels to buy cars and houses, he said. Today, Greece must pay the price for its follies, he acknowledged, but not on terms that leave the Greek people bereft of dignity. "It's very important for people to work hard, and losing sight of that is why Greece is in this mess," Mr. Apostolopoulos said. He works full time as the owner of a small construction company, but is proud that he still wakes up every morning at 5 to tend to 1,000 olive trees on the sloping hill behind his house.