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With 40.5% of the vote, the New Democracy leader easily won the elections, revalidating his term as prime minister and giving his party a majority of 158 seats in the Vouli (the Hellenic Parliament). His closest rival, the leftist Syriza party led by Alexis Tsipras, came in second, with a poor result for the party’s history; while three far-right parties managed to sneak into the Legislative.
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Greece carried out its second legislative elections in five weeks on Sunday, and the first exit polls immediately indicated that the conservative Kyriakos Mitsotakisfrom the reformist New Democracy, would win another term, this time, with an absolute majority of 158 seats out of the 300 held by the Hellenic Parliament.
A situation that will allow him, in his words, to form “a stable government”, since “the people” have given him other years in office “to promote much-needed reforms.” Among them, salary increases and a health reform.
“This support only increases my responsibility to respond to the hopes of the people. Personally, I feel an even stronger obligation to serve the country with all my abilities,” Mitsotakis said after learning of his victory.
Behind in the race was the leftist leader and former prime minister (2015-2019) Alexis Tsiprasfrom the Syriza party, which gathered only 17.8% of the votes and lost more than 30 deputies.
The current result showed that Syriza obtained the largest difference in votes compared to the first party since 1974, to which Euclid Tsakalotos, former finance minister during the party’s governance, referred to it with a resounding “this is a great defeat”.
Voting began at 07:00 local time and concluded at 19:00 as scheduled. Around 9.8 million Greeks were summoned to the polls.
Mitsotakis, a 55-year-old Harvard graduate and former head of government, won a sweeping victory five weeks ago with 40.8% of the vote, double that of Syriza. The ease of his victory, which surprised analysts, did not, however, allow him to reach an absolute majority.
The conservative leader, at the head of the New Democracy party, then ruled out a coalition with other formations and led to the electoral repetition of this Sunday, which he arrived with between 37.8% and 45% of voting intentions according to the latest polls. .
Tsipras on the tightrope
In the previous days, Tsipras had promised to fight “until the last second” despite the poor result achieved in the previous elections on May 21, in which Mitsotakis was only five seats short of an absolute majority. Syriza obtained 20.07% of the vote on May 21.
The electoral appointment, the leader of the left stated that the country would know this Sunday if it would have an “uncontrolled government” or “a democratic balance”, with “a strong opposition” capable of playing its role, Tsipras said after exercising his right to vote.
By giving New Democracy an absolute majority in the July 2019 elections, to the detriment of Syriza, the Greeks wanted to turn the page on years of financial crisis and bailout plans, which destroyed 25% of national GDP and threatened the country. with taking it out of the euro zone.
During the campaign, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, son of a former prime minister and uncle of the current mayor of Athens, did not stop boasting about his economic balance, marked by growth of 8.3% in 2021 and 5.9% in 2022, with falling unemployment.
But Tsipras, once the hope of the radical left in Europe, warned during the contest against giving his rival a “blank check” that would allow him to push a “hidden agenda” of anti-social policies.
Meanwhile, the extreme right gained a foothold in Parliament. The party of this current Espartanos obtained 4.6% of the votes, followed by two other similar formations: Greek Solution (4.4%) and the anti-system Niki (Victoria), with 3.7% of the votes.
With AFP, Reuters and EFE
