Et’s a bit like in the Bundesliga: The champion is already known beforehand, but the scramble for the places behind promises excitement. Ever since the elections were called a month ago, it has been certain that Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his conservative party Nea Dimokratia will win the Greek parliamentary elections this Sunday by a clear margin. Almost ten million citizens aged seventeen and over are called to vote, and a clear relative majority of them will vote for Mitsotakis. The only thing that is unclear is the extent of the lead and the question of whether Mitsotakis will continue to be able to govern without a coalition partner.
The election campaign was unspectacular, even the tragedy of the cutter that capsized off the Greek coast had little effect. The national mourning that was declared after the accident briefly interrupted the parties’ election campaigns, but the incident itself had little impact on the debates. A meeting between Mitsotakis and former US President Barack Obama, who was in Athens for an event, was one of the highlights of the election campaign. The new ballot had become necessary because Mitsotakis was not satisfied with the result of the parliamentary elections on May 21, which his party had won overwhelmingly.
Mitsotakis changed the electoral law in his favour
More precisely: He was not satisfied with the electoral law in force at the time. In contrast to what is usual in Greece, this did not provide for a “winner’s bonus”. In the 300-seat parliament, this means between 20 and 50 extra mandates for the strongest party. That is why New Democracy could not have governed alone, despite its impressive result of almost 41 percent of the votes cast. But that is exactly what Mitsotakis is aiming for, as he did in his first term in 2019. He will probably be able to achieve this goal on Sunday. Because unlike in May, after a change in voting rights, the bonus rule now applies again.
All polls indicate that the election result will most likely not differ much from May’s. The New Dimokratia can therefore count on an approval of about 40 percent of the votes. Opposition leader Alexis Tsipras and his Alliance of the Radical Left, which ruled from 2015 to 2019, should be happy if they can keep their May result of a good 20 percent. A serious prospect that Tsipras could become Prime Minister again, which was briefly hinted at after a fatal train accident in February, has long since disappeared. All other parties that can move into parliament are even more so known as “further ran”.
The tragedy of the capsized cutter off the Greek coast, which is believed to have killed several hundred migrants, did not harm the approval ratings of New Democracy and its boss. The bottom line is that Mitsotakis’ hard line, which also allows the coast guard and border guards to carry out forced returns (pushbacks), meets with approval from a majority of the population, and even more so from the core constituency of New Democracy. Mitsotakis will therefore probably be able to continue in this field as before. His main focus is on the economic modernization of Greece. The government has actually had some successes in recent years. Greece is no longer the problem child of the euro zone, even if the level of debt is still immensely high.
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