ATHENS: Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a conservative former prime minister, is expected to win a second consecutive four-year term in Greece’s upcoming election on Sunday following a contentious vote in May.
With between 40 and 43.9 percent of the vote, polls predict that Mitsotakis’ New Democracy party will win handily.
With a score of 40.79 percent last month, Mitsotakis, 55, easily defeated his closest challenger, former left-leaning prime minister Alexis Tsipras, by a margin of more than 20 points.
However, he was unable to get a sufficient legislative majority and turned down the opportunity to join a coalition.
According to a Pulse survey conducted last week for private Skai TV, 90% of New Democracy voters want to cast their ballots for the conservatives on Sunday.
According to Mitsotakis, under his leadership, Greeks paid lesser taxes and the nation developed into a success story that attracted investors, generating growth above the European average and bringing tourism revenue back to levels that were practically pre-pandemic.
‘Growth will continue’
He recently assured Greeks that the country’s economic prosperity will continue.
“We are more knowledgeable, organised, and determined.”
According to Mitsotakis’ detractors, he lavished billions of euros on political cronies and supportive media, sought to cover up a significant eavesdropping scandal, and tried to abdicate responsibility for the country’s deadliest train accident in February.
This time, Mitsotakis, a former financial consultant for McKinsey and a Harvard graduate, is up against a challenge on his right that may determine the composition of his parliamentary party.
Niki, a brand-new hard-right party, and Greek Solution, an established nationalist party, both poll over the necessary 3 percent barrier after barely missing out on parliamentary seats in May.
Plefsi Eleftherias, a second new party led by the extreme leftist former speaker of the parliament Zoe Konstantopoulou, is also set to win parliamentary participation.
Yanis Varoufakis, a former finance minister, is running for office as well with the far-left MeRa25 party.
The winner will require a bigger percentage of the vote to maximise their parliamentary group in the 300-seat chamber if eight parties are successful in winning seats in parliament on Sunday.
Mitsotakis has come under fire for stating that if a government cannot be formed by Sunday, a third election might be conducted in August, during the busiest travel season.
A final vote?
The former prime minister said last month that his inability to join a coalition government following the May election was due to severe policy disagreements with his closest challengers, socialist leader Nikos Androulakis and leftist leader Alexis Tsipras.
Additionally, he has refrained from working with any hard-right group.
In accordance with current regulations, the forthcoming election will award the victor a bonus of up to 50 seats, helping efforts to build a one-party government.
The vote will take place in the wake of the June 14 migrant boat catastrophe, which took 78 lives and is said to have left hundreds more missing and unlikely to be discovered.
However, it is not anticipated that the disaster, which has been deemed Greece’s greatest maritime mishap, would have a significant impact on the election outcome.
Given that Mitsotakis has defeated Tsipras in five elections, the election may potentially mark the end of Tsipras’ 15 years as leader of the socialist Syriza party.
Mitsotakis, an uncle of Athens’ current mayor and the son of a prime minister, also brags about his administration’s aggressive stance on immigration and defence expenditure.
He bragged that all but one of the 59 electoral areas in the nation had “turned blue” (the colour of the New Democracy party) following the vote on May 21.
Then he pledged to seize control of Rodopi, the final province controlled by Syriza.
The ex-PM, however, raised questions by asserting that Syriza’s victory was aided by involvement from Turkey’s longtime foe, the Greek Muslim population in the area.
Last week, he claimed in an interview with Skai TV, “There was very strong interference from the Turkish consulate in favour of specific (Syriza) candidates… with (SMS) messages that said ‘Turks support Turks’.”
