Kyriakos Mitsotakis, center, center-right New Democratic Party leader poses for the media with daughter Dafni Mitsotakis, left, and son Konstantinos Mitsotakis at a polling station in Athens, Greece, on Sunday.
Yorgos Karahalis/AP
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Kyriakos Mitsotakis, center, center-right New Democratic Party leader poses for the media with daughter Dafni Mitsotakis, left, and son Konstantinos Mitsotakis at a polling station in Athens, Greece, on Sunday.
Yorgos Karahalis/AP
ATHENS, Greece – Greece’s conservative New Democratic Party has won a landslide victory in the country’s presidential election. second election in five weekswith partial official results showing it achieved a comfortable parliamentary majority to form a government for a second four-year term.
Official results from nearly 90% of polling centers nationwide show Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ party winning just over 40% of the vote, while his main rival, the leftist Syriza party, suffered a crushing defeat with just under 18%, even worse than his party. 20% in the last election in May.
Sunday’s vote comes just over a week after a Migration ship capsized and sunk off the west coast of Greece, leaving hundreds dead and missing, and raised questions about the actions of Greek authorities and the country’s strict migration policy. But the disaster, one of the worst in the Mediterranean in recent years, did not affect the election, with domestic economic issues at the forefront of voters’ concerns.
Mitsotakis’ party is expected to win about 157 or 158 of the 300 seats in Parliament, thanks to a change in the electoral law allowing the winning party to gain more seats. The previous election in May, conducted under a proportional representation system, left him five seats short of the majority despite winning 41% of the vote.
In total, eight parties are predicted to pass the 3% threshold to enter Parliament, including a religious extremist and far-right party backed by a jailed former lawmaker from the Golden Dawn party. inspired by Nazi Germany and has now been outlawed. The number of parties participating in Parliament will affect the number of seats the winner will hold.
Mitsotakis, 55, campaigned on a platform of ensuring economic growth and political stability as Greece slowly recovered from its nearly decade-long financial crisis.
Opposition leader Alexis Tsipras, head of the leftist party Syriza, casts his vote at a polling station in Athens, Greece, on Sunday.
Michael Varaklas/AP
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Opposition leader Alexis Tsipras, head of the leftist party Syriza, casts his vote at a polling station in Athens, Greece, on Sunday.
Michael Varaklas/AP
His main rival, Alexis Tsipras, 48, served as prime minister from 2015 to 2019 — one of the most tumultuous years of Greece’s nearly decade-long financial crisis. His performance on Sunday left him fighting for his political survival. After performing poorly in the May election, he has struggled to rally his voter base, a task complicated by split parties founded by some of his former associates.
Speaking after voting in a neighborhood west of Athens, Tsipras appeared to accept his party would be in opposition for the next four years even if the vote was still ongoing.
“This important election not only determines who will run the country, it also determines our lives for the next four years, it determines the quality of our democracy,” Tsipras said. “That determines whether we will have an uncontrolled government or a strong opposition. This role can only be played by Syriza.”
Mitsotakis, a Harvard graduate, comes from one of Greece’s most prominent political families. His late father, Constantine Mitsotakis, served as prime minister in the 1990s, his sister served as foreign minister, and his grandson is the current mayor of Athens. The younger Mitsotakis has announced it will change Greece’s name to a eurozone member with corporate and financial responsibility.
The strategy, so far, has worked. New Democracy defeated leftist opponents in May, capturing key Socialist Party strongholds on Crete and low-income areas around Athens, some for the first time.
“We are voting so that everyone can have a stable government for the next four years,” Mitsotakis said after casting the vote north of Athens on Sunday. “I’m sure the Greeks will vote maturely for their personal prosperity and the stability of the country.”
Despite the scandals that hit the Mitsotakis government towards the end of his term, including revelations of wiretapping targeting high-ranking politicians and journalists, and the February 28 deadly train crash exposed poor safety measures in public transport, voters expressed joy when a prime minister returned to power. bring economic growth and reduce unemployment.
“Our expectation is that the country will continue on the path of development it has been on in recent years,” said insurance company employee Konstantinos, who arrived at a polling station north of Athens early in the morning with with newlywed Marietta, still in her wedding dress, right from their wedding reception. He asked that his last name not be used.
Another early morning voter, Sofia Oikonomopoulou, said she hoped Sunday’s winning party would have enough seats in parliament to form a government “so that the country doesn’t suffer any more.”
“We hope in better days, for justice, for the health system, for education, that everything will work out for the better and that the Greeks will actually be able to live a good life,” she said. through these elections”.
Sunday’s vote is being held under an electoral system that awards 25 to 50 seats to the winning party, depending on that party’s performance, which makes it easy for a party to win more than 151 seats needed in the 300-member parliament to form a government.
