Mitsotakis bets on new elections in Greece to be able to govern alone

First modification: 05/22/2023 – 19:14

Just 24 hours after the general elections, Greece is set to hold new elections in the coming weeks. This is the scenario that is opening up, after Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis – whose conservative party won a victory in Sunday’s parliamentary elections, but without an absolute majority – anticipated that he will not form a coalition government.

The political leader promotes the formation of a single-party Executive and, for this, his hopes are now focused on new votes, which could be held on June 25. In that vote, a new electoral law would enter into force, which would grant a bonus of 20 additional seats to the winner, which, if the results of last Sunday were repeated, would give New Democracy an absolute majority.

“Together we will fight so that in the next elections, what the citizens have already decided, a self-sufficient New Democracy, is mathematically confirmed on the ballot,” said Mitsotakis.

His statements came after Sunday, May 21, his New Democracy (ND) bench obtained a landslide victory with its best result since 2007, but which fell short of five seats to win an absolute majority.

The 55-year-old prime minister made his decision not to seek alliances known shortly after meeting the country’s president, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, who formally gave him the mandate to try to form a government. But the Harvard-educated former bank executive said that wouldn’t make sense.

“Indeed, I cannot see any way for the current Parliament to form a government (…) That is why I will return the mandate to them this afternoon, so that we can move towards new elections as soon as possible, perhaps even on June 25,” Mitsotakis explained. .

Election day results

With the count almost complete, New Democracy won 146 seats in the 300-seat parliament, five less than the majority, after winning around 40.79% of the ballots in its favor.

Meanwhile, Syriza won 20.07% and 71 seats, while Pasok ranked third with 11.46%.

Citizen participation was 61%, the electoral authorities said.

With these results, the center-right premier’s movement won twice as many votes as its closest rival, Syriza, led by leftist Alexis Tsipras, and nearly four times as many as socialist Pasok.

Likewise, the margin of victory for Mitsotakis’s party far exceeded poll forecasts and was the largest since 1974, when Greece’s first democratic elections were held after the fall of the seven-year military dictatorship.

However, to govern, Mitsotakis would have had to resort to alliances with other political groups, something that he chose to discard.

Tsipras also announced that he is preparing for the new dispute at the polls after noting that “the electoral cycle is not over yet.” The next battle, he said, will be “critical and final.”

“Voters prioritized economic stabilityto”

Experts point out that citizens gave broad support to the Conservatives in response to a party that has restored economic stability to a nation once considered a laggard in the European Union (EU).

In power for the past four years, the former McKinsey consultant guided the Greek mainland through the Covid-19 pandemic that devastated the nation’s vital tourism industry, but has been credited with successfully handling the health emergency.

On his watch, the EU’s once economic headache has enjoyed a post-pandemic resurgence, posting 5.9% growth in 2022.

Although his tenure was also marred by a wiretapping scandal and a rail disaster last February that left 57 people dead, opposition efforts to capitalize on them failed.

“ND’s overwhelming performance is due in large part to the positive record on the economic front of the last four years (…) The result of yesterday’s vote creates a window of opportunity for Greece to turn the page and move away from the policies toxic populists that emerged during the financial crisis,” said analyst Wolfango Piccoli, adding that voters prioritized the economy and political stability over everything else.

With unemployment and inflation falling, and growth this year projected to be twice the European Union average, Greece’s outlook is a far cry from the crippling debt crisis it experienced a decade ago.

With Reuters, AFP and AP