The centre-right of outgoing prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is on the verge of winning the elections in Greece which took place today, Sunday 21 May. But it is not said that he will have the numbers to form a new majority. According to the first partial data arriving from the count, with 40% of the votes counted, the New Democracy party is credited with 41.1%. Widely behind the opposition: Syriza, the left-wing party led by former prime minister Alexis Tsipras, is said to be around 20%. Even further away would be the socialists of Pasok, accredited with 12.5% of the votes. A clear success therefore for the center-right of the outgoing government, but not such – if these numbers were to confirm you – as to have an autonomous majority in the new Parliament to form a government. And while Syriza leader Tsipras phones Mitsotakis to congratulate him on his success, he already hovers over the specter of new elections in a few weeks.
“Hope won.” But not enough
The outgoing prime minister has cashed in what now appears to be a certain victory. “The data from the polls is clear: the message is that Nea Dimokratia is autonomous,” Mitsotakis said. “Hope has defeated pessimism”, added the prime minister, reiterating his commitment to “work even harder to honor the trust” of citizens. Then Mitsotakis acknowledged that it will be difficult for him to count on a majority in the new Parliament. “The mathematics of proportional representation lead to dead ends,” he added, suggesting that he is aiming for new elections, with a different electoral system, to form a single-party government. According to sources of the conservative party to the Greek newspaper Kathimerini, New Democracy has already circled the date of possible new elections on the agenda, in which to try to narrowly capitalize on the success, rounding it off: 25 June. Mitsotakis, it is the plan, would immediately give up the exploratory mandate to aim straight for a return to the polls.
“In the next elections we will demonstrate that what the citizens wanted: the self-sufficiency of Nea Dimokratia will be mathematically confirmed,” Mitsotakis said in the evening, celebrating his party’s victory and thus confirming his intention not to form a coalition government , but of wanting to go back to voting at the end of June with a new electoral system which provides for a seat bonus for the first party.
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