Conservative Kiriakos Mitsotakis will continue to lead Greece for the next four years. His party, New Democracy, prevailed forcefully in the Greek elections yesterday, obtaining 40.5% of the vote, a result that in this repeat election will indeed allow him to govern alone, thanks to the gain of 50 seats that returns to grant the electoral system to the Hellenic country. With his message focused on economic growth, Mitsotakis has won 158 of the 300 seats in the Greek Parliament, an absolute majority.
The result of the elections, the second in just over a month, is a new blow to the former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who has been defeated in an even more forceful way than in the elections of May 21 . His party, the left-wing coalition Syriza, won 17.8% of the vote, down from the 20% it got in May, when it was already considered a rout compared to polls predicting it could contest. victory on the right. In recent times, Tsipras had tried to soften his message and present himself as a formation fully integrated into the Greek system, but the polls have shown the limits of that Syriza born of indignation over the debt crisis that had turned into a beacon for other forces of the European left. His position is likely to be questioned.
As happened in previous elections, many left-wing voters have left Syriza to return to Pasok, which won 11.9% of the vote. The social democrats came third, ahead of the KKE communists (7.6%) and the far-right party Spartans (4.6%), endorsed by the former neo-Nazi deputy Ilias Kasidiaris, imprisoned for leading a criminal gang. Two more far-right parties have achieved parliamentary representation, Greek Solution (4.4%) and Niki (Victoria), with 3.7%. Finally, the formation of ex-Syriza deputy Zoe Konstantopulu, Travessia de la Libertat, has managed to pass the 3% threshold to enter Parliament, something that the MeRA25 of ex-minister Ianis Varoufakis has not achieved. Participation was low, at 52%, almost ten points less than in May.
Mitsotakis won for the first time in 2019 as the new face of one of the country’s most powerful families, and is the son of former Prime Minister Konstantinos Mitsotakis (1990-1993) and the brother of former mayor Dora Bakoyannis of Athens and Minister of Foreign Affairs. The liberal leader flagged the results and assured that he has received a “strong mandate” to carry out reforms that will allow to raise salaries and modernize the national health system.
The Greeks have rewarded the good economic results of Mitsotakis, who has refocused the electoral campaign on the growth the country has experienced during his mandate. With him, foreign investments have increased and the debt has fallen by 35 percentage points in the last two years. The terrible shipwreck off the coast of the Peloponnese of a fishing boat carrying around 750 people and the doubts about the actions of the Greek coast guard in the tragedy have hardly had an impact on the electoral campaign. New Democracy has also not suffered the wear and tear of the enormous scandal of spying on politicians, journalists and businessmen by the EYP secret services, which came to affect the leader of Pasok.
