Greece
Prime Minister Mitsotakis wins clearly, but it is not enough to govern
Greece’s election winner Kyriakos Mitsotakis is celebrated by his supporters.
© Petros Giannakouris / AFP
Greece voted and will do so again soon: the conservatives won clearly, but it wasn’t enough to form a government – the winner, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, wants to govern alone.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis won the parliamentary elections in Greece – but missed an absolute majority. His conservative Nea Dimokratia (ND) party won the parliamentary elections with 40.8 percent. The Ministry of the Interior announced this early Monday after counting almost all the votes.
Mitsotakis wants to govern alone – new elections
Nevertheless, there will be no government for the time being. Because Mitsotakis is either facing difficult coalition negotiations – or he could aim for another vote to secure an absolute majority after all. On the evening of the election, he ruled out a coalition. He has always campaigned for governing alone and has now received the mandate from voters to do so, he said. The next election could take place as early as June.
Shortly after the first official projection on Sunday, the Greek media wrote about a “historic election”, “earthquake” and “landslide victory”. The left-wing party Syriza by Alexis Tsipras, which was considered the most promising opponent, fell – it achieved only 20.1 percent and thus around eleven percentage points less than in the 2019 election. Out of 59 electoral districts, the left only won one, the rest went to New Democracy.
Pasok only with 11.5 percent
A total of five parties made it into parliament – in addition to the two major opponents, the social democratic Pasok with 11.5 percent, the Greek Communist Party (KKE) with 7.2 percent and the right-wing populist Elliniki Lisi (Greek Solution) with 4.5 percent. The left-wing party Mera25 led by ex-Finance Minister Giannis Varoufakis and the ultra-conservative Niki failed at the three percent hurdle.
The fact that a new round of voting for the New Democracy will in all probability secure power is due to a peculiarity in Greek electoral law. In the current election, simple proportional representation applied: mathematically, one or more parties must collect 48 percent of the votes in order to be able to govern. In the next elections, on the other hand, the strongest party will automatically receive at least 20 additional seats in parliament – this would probably mean that the ND would be in government alone again.
Greece keeps voting
The parties will still fight until the next election date, as the chairmen assured in interviews. Election loser Alexis Tsipras said changes would be made quickly to deliver the best campaign possible.