Nea Dimokratia, the party currently in government with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, won the general election in Greece, obtaining the best result since 2007: 40.79%. It is more than 20 points behind left-wing rival Syriza – led by former prime minister Alexis Tsipras – but Nea Dimokratia has amassed 146 seats in the 300-member parliament, not enough to secure an absolute majority.
The results
As mentioned, Nea Dimokratia won the elections with 40.79%, ahead of Syriza which collected 20.07% of the votes. The third political force, Pasok, obtained 11.46%, an increase compared to 2019 when it stopped at 8%. Consensus also increased for the Greek Communist Party (KKE), which collects 7.21% (5.3% in 2019), and the Greek Solution (Elliniki lisi), a far-right party that enters Parliament with 4.45% (3.7% in 2019). On the other hand, Diem25, founded by former Finance Minister Yannis Varoufakis, is down, with 2.62% not exceeding the threshold.
What happens now?
Given the absence of an absolute majority, the President of the Republic Katerina Sakellaropoulou will give Mitsotakis an exploratory mandate lasting up to three days to form a coalition government. Should it not be successful, the same attempt will be made by Alexis Tsipras, leader of the party who arrived and second, and finally by Nikos Androulakis, head of Pasok who is positioned third. The picture that seems to emerge, however, is that of new elections at the end of June, because Mitsotakis has already clarified that he does not want to build alliances given the “clear result” that came out of the polls, and the percentages obtained by the other political forces that have exceeded the threshold in any case, they would not allow for a sufficient number of seats to constitute an absolute majority.
Elections at the end of June
Mitsotakis is aiming for the second round of elections because in that case a different electoral system will be applied: no longer a simple proportional system but a reinforced proportional system which would allow the outgoing prime minister to govern alone. With this system, if the first party exceeds 25% it gets a “bonus” of at least 20 seats which can become even 50 if the result reaches 40%.
Source-tg24.sky.it