Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of the conservative New Democracy (ND) formation won Sunday’s general elections in Greece with 40.80% of the vote, with more than 96% of the ballots counted. That percentage – which gives him 146 of the 300 seats in Parliament – doesn’t allow him to govern alone, but it’s a much larger lead over the second party than the polls predicted. And they put him in a position of strength against the rerun of elections.
The left of Syriza, the main opposition party led by Alexis Tsipras, has suffered an awkward blow. The formation was in second place, but lost more than 10 points and received only 20.07% of the vote, half as much as the ND; The Pasok Socialists, on the other hand, gained strength and reached 11.67%.
Mitsotakis, in power since 2019, has managed to instill in voters the idea that the country has overcome the trauma of the worst years of the crisis and with another four-year term in office will complete the path of modernization. Neither the fatal train accident last February, in which 57 people died, nor the scandal of listening to politicians, soldiers and journalists took their toll.
The prime minister appeared jubilant just two hours after polling stations closed but warned that the “math of the electoral system” does not allow him to form a government and that the country must return to the ballot box. “The result is obvious,” he explained, “the citizens want a stable executive so that we can quickly get on the road that brings us closer to Europe.” “
The night’s big loser was Tsipras, Syriza’s prime minister between 2015 and 2019. After the vote was virtually over, he received half the support of ND. She will take 72 seats, compared to 86 she got in the previous elections. Syriza supporters cannot be blamed for abstaining, with turnout at 60.80%, up from 57.78% in 2019. Although voting is compulsory in Greece, those who do not vote are not penalized. The communists of the KKE got 7.16% (20 seats) and the ultra-nationalists of the Greek solution 4.47% (16).
Alexis Tsipras, Syriza’s candidate, arrives at his party’s headquarters in Athens.LOUISA GOULIAMAKI (AFP)
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Tsipras congratulated Mitsotakis over the phone. And he issued a brief televised message from his office: “The struggles have victories and defeats. Our collective bodies will meet immediately to evaluate the results of the elections. However, the election cycle is not over yet as there is likely to be a second election call. No time to waste.” And he added: “We must immediately make all the necessary changes to create the best possible conditions for the next election campaign, which is crucial and final.”
But not all faces on the left were rueful last night. The Pasok Socialists celebrated a result that cemented Nikos Androulakis at the head of the formation after decades of corruption scandals, splits, name changes and the death of their leader, Fofi Gennimatá, from illness. In his first elections as a candidate, Androulakis won almost twice as many seats as in 2019 (41 to 22). One of his constituents, Konstantinos Filipidis, an 87-year-old retired chemical engineer, as he exited the voting booth yesterday, explained why he had chosen the Socialist Party: “Syriza is not the real left, the communists are cadavers and MeRA25 is evenly worse.” The latter party’s candidate, former Economy Minister under Tsipras Yanis Varoufakis, failed the 3% vote cut and will not take a seat.
From now on, a round of consultations to form a government will begin. However, Mitsotakis predicted in his statement that the country may go back to the polls in late June or early July, using a voting system that rewards the list with the most votes. The day will be remembered for the largest general strike recorded in Greece in the past decade. The strike took place on March 8 after the train crash, amid protests over the deterioration of public services. This led to the resignation of the then Minister of Transport, Kostas A. Karamanlis, and Mitsotakis’ forgiveness of the victims, although he claimed that the cause of the accident was human error on the part of the head of the nearest station. Karamanlis is now one of 146 elected MPs in New Democracy.
cost of living
Voters also failed to punish Mitsotakis for his second major political crisis, the wiretapping scandal. This case was uncovered in June 2021 when Pasok boss Nikos Andrulakis reported an attempt to tap his phone. This revelation sparked further allegations of espionage by the secret services against journalists, politicians, high-ranking soldiers and even Mitsotakis ministers.
The government knew how to avoid scandals during the campaign by focusing its campaign on the economy. All Greeks remember that the country filed for bankruptcy in 2008 after markets put pressure on its sovereign debt. The so-called troika of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund imposed harsh austerity measures in exchange for the granting of loans. The country was monitored by the EU financial authorities until August 2022, when the period of “enhanced surveillance” of the accounts ended with the departure of the so-called Men in Black, as the Troika controllers are colloquially known.
Mitsotakis praised the end of EU guardianship, its management during the pandemic and the end of the energy crisis that resulted from the Ukraine war. The unemployment rate is 10.9%, the lowest in decades. The opposition had an impact on the cost of living during the election campaign, recalling that external debt continues to account for 171% of GDP.
Some new elections with an award for the list with the most votes
The President of Greece, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, will entrust the party with the most votes to form a government, as required by the constitution. If it doesn’t get enough support within 72 hours, responsibility shifts to the second largest party with the most votes, serving the same term. And if he fails, the third person gets a chance. After three failed attempts, Greeks would be called to vote again within a period of at least 40 days, which would start from this Monday.
Strictly speaking, these elections were not a second round, but new elections. And they would be governed by the third electoral system adopted over the past eight years. In 2015, left-wing Syriza won the elections with a system that distributed 150 seats proportionally and reserved another 50 for the list with the most votes. The following year, 2016, Syriza passed a law that distributed seats proportionally to avoid absolute majorities and encourage pacts and coalitions.
That is the rule applied in yesterday’s elections. With this system, New Democracy won the 2019 elections, although it is difficult to achieve an absolute majority. And it reformed it in 2020, but the changes won’t go into effect once the legislative session that approved them is over. In the following elections, when they finally take place in July, the first list would enjoy the prize of the “reinforced proportional representation system”, which provides for granting 20 additional seats from 25% of the vote and up to 50 if it exceeds 40%. .
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