Greece re-elects conservatives after gamble pays off for leader Mitsotakis
The Guardian|June 26, 2023
Greece's conservative New Democracy has won a landslide victory in the country's second election in five weeks, granting its leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis a second four-year term as prime minister
Helena Smith
Greece re-elects conservatives after gamble pays off for leader Mitsotakis

With almost 95% of ballots counted, New Democracy had won 40.5% of the vote, a result that would give Mitsotakis an outright majority with 158 seats in the 300-seat parliament.

Syriza, the centre-left party led by Mitsotakis's main opponent, Alexis Tsipras, was on 17.81%, a routing that was even worse than the 20% it achieved in elections last month.

Several smaller parties, including the previously unheard of Spartans, also crossed the 3% threshold to get into parliament. MeRa 25, led by the maverick former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, failed to make it into the house.

"The non-entry of MeRa 25 into parliament is the least of it," Varoufakis told reporters. What the left should be mourning, he said, was its failure to turn a 10-year battle of resistance against austerity "into a progressive front [that could] prevent the transformation of rage into a farright current".

A poll on 21 May also ended in a decisive victory for 55-year-old Mitsotakis, but because it was conducted under an electoral system of proportional representation he was left five seats short of a majority. The pro-business leader called a second election with the aim of forming a government that would allow him to push ahead with reforms.

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