The first official results leave New Democracy at the gates of an absolute majority in Greece

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The first official results, still partial, confirm a clear victory for the conservative New Democracy (ND) party with more than 40 percent of votes in the legislative elections held this Sunday in Greece, although it would not achieve the absolute majority it has in the legislature that ends with these elections.

New Democracy thus stands well ahead of the main opposition party, the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYIRIZA), which would achieve 20 percent of the vote, according to data corresponding to 64.21 percent of the ballot.

Specifically, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s ND party has achieved 40.87 percent of the vote and 145 of the 300 seats in Parliament; SYRIZA, 20.09 percent and 72 seats; the Panhellenic Socialist Party (PASOK), 11.92 and 42 deputies; the Communist Party of Greece (KKE, 7.05 percent and 25 seats) and Rumbo a la Libertad (Plefsi Eleftherias, 4.49 percent and 16 seats). The rest of formations would not obtain parliamentary representation.

These data place Mitsotakis on the verge of an absolute majority, since he would win 11 fewer seats than in the 2019 elections, and the Greek press has already begun to speculate on June 25 as a possible date for the rerun of the elections.

GOVERNMENT FORMATION

The next institutional step corresponds to the president of Greece, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, who will commission the party with the most votes to test the rest of the formations to try to forge some kind of alliance. In the event that she does not succeed, the task will go to the second party with the most votes and, if she fails again, to the third.

After three failed attempts, the Greeks will be called to the polls again, after the appointment of an interim administration headed by a representative of the judicial system.

In this second appointment with the polls, the pure proportional system in force in these elections would be set aside and the model promoted by Mitsotakis would be applied and in which the premium for the party with the most votes is recovered: 20 more seats in case of obtaining 25 percent of the votes, with a margin to expand up to 50, a formula to facilitate governability.

Analysts take it for granted that this second appointment with the polls will be necessary, although the parties will have to measure their movements to avoid being singled out as responsible for the lack of consensus. For New Democracy, one of the most complex scenarios would involve an agreement with PASOK in a kind of grand coalition.

Mitsotakis in principle rules out this collaboration and the Social Democratic leader, Nikos Androulakis, has charged ink against the conservatives after knowing that he was spied on by the Intelligence services. PASOK, however, does not close doors with either New Democracy or SYRIZA, conditioning any future support on the adoption of part of its political program, in a timid attempt to recover its historic influence on the Greek political scene.