From 7:00 in the morning (04:00 GMT), nearly 10 million voters can cast their vote in the 21,500 polling stations throughout the country.
Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
The first Minister Greek for the last four years and a clear favorite for victory in the general elections this Sunday, the conservative Kyriakos Mitsotakis, called for a vote for a stable government on election day that passes without notable incidents.
Starting at 7:00 in the morning (04:00 GMT), close to 10 million voters can deposit their vote in the 21,500 polling stations throughout the country, in what is the second appointment with the polls in a month after the attempts to form a government after the May elections will fail.
“Today we vote for the second time in a few weeks so that the country has a stable and effective government,” said Mitsotakis after depositing his ballot in the Kifisiá neighborhood of Athens.
Conservative leader sure to get the vote
The conservative leader, who starts as the clear favorite in the polls, was “absolutely sure” that citizens would vote “for a stable Greece, which provides conditions of prosperity and social equality for all.”
Former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, head of the main opposition party, the leftist Syriza, said that in these elections it will be decided whether starting tomorrow there will be in Greece “a strong opposition to control the Government.”
According to the latest polls, Mitsotakis’s conservative New Democracy will add 40% of the votes, which would take 20 points ahead of Syriza, which would obtain 20%.
These are identical percentages to those that the two parties received in the May 21 elections, although this time the conservative leader would only need to receive 39% to win an absolute majority in the 300-seat Parliament. And this thanks to a bonus of up to 50 seats to the winning party, which had been eliminated in the last elections.
In third place, with 12%, is the social democrat Pasok-Kinal, followed by the Communist Party (6.5%) and the nationalist Greek Solution (4%).
Two parties would achieve parliamentary representation for the first time: the Freedom Journey formation, of the former Syriza deputy Zoe Konstantopulu (4%), and the far-right and anti-system NIKI (Victoria), of theologian Dimitris Natsios (3.5%).
After twelve hours of opening, the polls will close at 7:00 p.m. (4:00 p.m. GMT).
The first results are expected an hour and a half later and by 9:00 p.m. (6:00 p.m. GMT) it will be known with some certainty how many seats each party will receive -and if New Democracy wins an absolute majority-, said Mijalis Stavrianudakis, secretary general of the Ministry of Interior, to public television ERT.
Millions of voters cast their vote.
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