“WHAT we must avoid,” confided a government minister in the spring of 2011, “is the perception among our European partners that ‘here come the fucking Greeks again'.” Job not done. The election on June 17th, a follow-up to an inconclusive vote on May 6th, will be scrutinised around Europe. A victory for Syriza, a left-wing party that did well in the first round by threatening to rip up Greece's bail-out agreement, would fuel fears of a Greek exit from the euro. Even if New Democracy, which has broadly signed up to the terms of the rescue, pips Syriza and leads a new government, those Greeks will be back again to negotiate.

In the meantime, uncertainty over the election result has frozen the economy. Many people have simply stopped paying their bills, hoarding cash as they wait to see what unfolds. “I have plenty of customers with enough deposits to meet their bills who choose not to pay,” says one banker, before admitting that he is holding off on his kids' private-school fees just in case.

Holidaymakers outside the country are also waiting and seeing. “It's been a disaster since the election,” says Ioannis-John Kent, the boss of youtravel.com, an online tour operator, and of Aquis Hotels, which runs a chain of resorts in Greece. Aquis normally takes 300 bookings a day; that number fell to around 50 after the May 6th vote. Mr Kent argues that such caution is unnecessary: after all, an exit would increase tourists' spending power; and what social unrest there is has been concentrated in Athens, not the islands where most foreign tourists sunbathe and gargle ouzo.

Deposits are still being withdrawn from bank accounts, though not at the same dramatic pace as occurred immediately after the May election (depositors are said to have withdrawn €700m—$877m—the following day). “I'm going to take €1,000 to €2,000 out before the election so that I can get through two weeks of chaos,” says one Athenian businessman.

In theory, even a slight risk of redenomination ought to justify taking every last euro out of the bank, whether stashing it under the mattress or abroad. But many deposit holders may want to keep enough money in a secure place in Greece to cope with day-to-day needs. Or, more likely, they may simply be assuming that the worst outcome, the return of the drachma, still remains improbable.

Even if that assumption is proved right, another period of uncertainty looms for Greece. Optimists hope that a new government, fortified by a mandate to do what it takes to remain in the euro, will reach an agreement with its creditors. Confidence will then return, particularly as Greece draws closer to a primary budget surplus.

But any bail-out renegotiations will be tricky. Greeks might reasonably hope for a bit more room for manoeuvre on fiscal targets, but squeezing more cash out of the Europeans to cover budgetary shortfalls, or slowing the pace of structural reform, will be much harder. The difficulties of other countries mean that Greece is no longer the only spark for a euro break-up: it cannot escape the wider blaze.

And the financial system is in limbo. Banks are waiting for the arrival of the new government to finalise a planned recapitalisation. Even without a sudden rush to withdraw cash, deposits are being run down as people live off savings. Non-performing loans are rising. And demand for credit is horribly subdued. The boss of one bank reports that small-business applications are running at around ten a day, down from 250-300 in the good old days. “The supply side is the easy part. Demand for risk-taking is the problem.”