Election result in Greece advances to second round

Although the New Democracy Party, led by Prime Minister Kiryakos Mitsotakis, failed to match the vote rate to come to power alone in yesterday’s elections, it came out of the polls after a four-year term.

Thanks to the 50 seats awarded to the first party in the 300-seat parliament, New Democracy came to power only in the July 2019 general election, winning 158 seats with 39.85 percent of the vote. Mitsotakis’s party won 146 seats, increasing its votes to about 41 percent in yesterday’s elections, in which it changed the system and abolished the practice of giving extra seats to the first party, but aims to bring voters back to the polls in May. 25 for power only.

According to the election results, New Democracy failed to obtain a sufficient majority in parliament to form a government of its own.

In the new electoral system, if a coalition cannot be formed and in the second ballot box, at least 20 seats must be given to the first party, as long as the voting rate exceeds 25 percent; For every 0.05 percent increase in the voting rate above 25 percent, one additional parliamentary seat is expected. This number can go up to 50.

MİÇOTAKIS: WE ARE STARTING WORK

In this case, Mitsotakis has two options. Go to a coalition that provides the 5 seats necessary to form a government or go to the polls for the second time and take the extra seats provided for the first party and come to power alone.

Mitsotakis, in his statement after the first unofficial results were known last night, interpreted the result of the polls as the people’s desire for a strong government. Saying that he will carry out the coalition-building process stipulated by the constitution, Miçotakis said, “We will start working on the elections from tomorrow,” and in fact finished the coalition process even before it started.

Commenting on the public’s support for New Democracy, noting that they “want the government to get on with its job,” Mitsotakis said, “People wanted us to run faster on the road to progress and bold reforms at the ballot box.”

BIG DROP IN SYRIZA’S GAME

In pre-election polls, New Democracy was the first party and the main opposition Radical Left Alliance (SYRIZA) was the second party, but the difference was limited to 6-8 percent.
The poll results revealed that this difference was around 20 percent.

As well as the victory of New Democracy, the drop in votes for SYRIZA was also notable. SYRIZA’s share of votes, which was 31.53% in the July 2019 general election, dropped to 20% after four years of mainline opposition.

New Democracy was the first party in 58 of 59 constituencies across the country. Only in the Rhodope region, which includes Komotini, did SYRIZA finish ahead. The Greek press commented that “Mitsotakis’ victory” was due to the electoral results, in which New Democracy obtained twice as many votes as SYRIZA.

The Kathimerini newspaper carried the headline “The victory of Mitsotakis, the fall of SYRIZA”. While the Ta Nea newspaper used the headline “Mitsotakis and the sovereignty of the new democracy”, it included the subheading “SYRIZA and the collapse of Aleksis Tsipras”.

The Apogeumatini newspaper used the phrases “The giant victory of the new democracy”, the Manifesto newspaper “Strong appointment of Mitsotakis for the second term” and the Politico newspaper “Victory of Mitsotakis, collapse of Tsipras” in their headlines. The pro-SYRIZA newspaper Avgi, on the other hand, placed the headline “Change for the next challenge” on its black-colored home page and published the assessment that the result was extremely negative for SYRIZA. (AA)