People went to the polls this Sunday and the first predictions were confirmed: a second term for the former conservative ruler. Mitsotakis, the Greek center-right party, won by a large margin over his main opponent of the left-wing coalition, renewing the prime ministership for another four years.
Former Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who is returning to government after the victory, has promised “big changes” from “salary increases” to a “more efficient state”.. As per the first results, with more than 80 percent of the votes counted, The New Democracy (ND) party won 40.5 percent of the vote, against 17.8 percent for Alexis Tsipras’s left-wing Syriza party.
After polling, The first forecasts indicated that Nova Democracy would achieve a majority, with opinion polls pointing to results ranging from 40 to 44 percent of the vote. The same projections suggested that Alexis Tsipras’s (ruled Greece from 2015 to 2019) leftist Syriza party could reach 16 or 19 percent, a lower record than the May 21 elections. Confirming these results, New Democracy secured the most comfortable victory of any party since 1974.
The data was released by Greek TV channels after the polls closed.
Last month, Mitsotakis defeated Tsipras but called for new elections, trying to achieve an absolute majority so he could form a government. According to Greek electoral rules for the second election, The Conservatives will gain an extra number of seats in parliament, but the exact number will depend on the final result.
Greece’s new electoral system gives the winning party a bonus of 25 to 50 seats, depending on the outcome, making it easier for a party to win more than the 151 seats needed in parliament to form a government.. This rule was removed in the last election and all attempts to form a government ended in failure.
According to the first studies, Between five and nine parties would need 3 percent of the vote to enter Greece’s 300-seat parliament.
PASOK won 12.3 percent and 33 seats, while the communist KKE won 7.6 percent and 20 seats. The far-right parties Spartanos (4.7 percent), Greek Solution (4.6 percent) and Niki (3.6 percent) combined for nearly 13 percent of the vote and will have 34 seats, with Niki winning 12 each for Spartans and Greek Solution. 10 parliamentary seats.
The Spartans emerged as a political force this month when the Greek Supreme Court barred another far-right party, the Greek National Party, and its leader from running in these elections.
Having won the May 21 election by a wide margin, but without a majority in the 300-seat parliament, the Conservative leader now needed just 39 percent to secure an absolute majority, thanks to a bonus of up to 50 seats for the winning party.
This Sunday, Greece holds its second general election in a month marked not only by the issue of migration after a recent shipwreck in the Ionian Sea, but also by unemployment and trade deficits.
The shipwreck was one of the deadliest migrant disasters in the Mediterranean, with just a few hundred survivors after a boat carrying 750 people capsized, and created a tense atmosphere between the two main candidates for election victory. The election is next Sunday.
Unemployment, which has already reached 12 percent, and a trade deficit that worries Greeks who still remember the effects of external financial intervention after the 2008 crisis also dominated the election campaign.
Mitsotakis appeared before voters with a promise to finalize reforms implemented by his government so that the Greek economy continues to grow, saying it is fundamental for the country to catch up with Europe in terms of wages and living standards. Tsipras defends an economy that “works for everyone” – after his party’s defeat in May, when he lost a third of his voters compared to 2019 – and he is now asking for votes for Syriza to be a “strong opposition”.
There was no shortage of reasons to criticize Tsipras during the election campaign, pointing to the government’s inability to deal with the accumulated trade deficit and rising unemployment, especially among the young.
with agencies
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