A little over a month after the general elections, Greece will return to the polls on 25th June, the right of Kyriakos Mitsotakis hoping this time to win an absolute majority.
Eight days after a ballot that saw the right handily win, a presidential decree published on Monday confirmed what all Greeks expected.
They will have to vote again to elect the 300 deputies of their unicameral Parliament on June 25, while the assembly resulting from the May 21 election did not allow the conservative New Democracy party to obtain an absolute majority.
This date is the one put forward by former Conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis after his party’s victory on May 21.
New Democracy won 40.8% of the vote, more than 20 points more than its main opponent, the left-wing Syriza party of former Prime Minister (2015-2019) Alexis Tsipras, which suffered a scathing reverse.
However, this result does not allow him to form a stable government, as he has ruled out building a coalition with a minority partner.
Triumphant on the evening of the results, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, 55, called this victory a “political earthquake” and paved the way for new legislative elections.
Bonuses
They will take place with a different voting system which, this time, will grant the winning party a “bonus” of up to 50 seats.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who came to power in 2019 and who wishes to obtain a second term, is betting on this second ballot to win an absolute majority.
The legislative elections of May 21 took place by simple proportional representation and the right-wing camp obtained 146 seats whereas it needed 151 to be able to form a stable government on its own.
Mr. Mitsotakis, heir to a large political family – his father was notably prime minister before him – reaffirmed his ambition for these second elections.
“We want a strong mandate for a stable government to implement our program, which cannot be done with a limited majority,” he said in an interview Monday morning with the private channel Mega.
While waiting for the next elections, an interim government has been appointed with a senior magistrate in charge of day-to-day affairs, Ioannis Sarmas, as prime minister.
“painful shock”
Weakened, Alexis Tsipras acknowledged that the May 21 election had been “a painful shock” for Syriza, but he promised to fight for the next elections.
“I have no reason to hide that the election result is a shock for us […] unexpected and painful”, he admitted two days after the defeat, before adding that “the injuries for Syriza are a fact”.
Some analysts believe, however, that a change could soon take place at the head of Syriza, a party from the radical left which he has led for 15 years and which he has refocused strongly on the left in recent years.
Compared to previous elections, in 2019 Syriza lost 11.5 points.
Left-leaning voters in Greece have never quite forgiven his resounding about-face in 2015 to Alexis Tsipras, then prime minister of a country in financial slump and engaged in heated negotiations with its donors, including the European Union . For almost six months, he had crossed swords with the Europeans before capitulating and taking drastic austerity measures whose devastating effects are still being felt for many Greeks.
The drop in purchasing power, inflation and low wages are the main concerns of the Greeks who have shown, with the low score of Syriza, that they definitely want to turn the page on the aid plans and the financial crises, judged analysts the day after the election.
Conversely, they were sensitive to New Democracy’s economic record.
Falling unemployment, growth of nearly 6% last year, return of investment and soaring tourism, the Greek economy has regained color after years of crisis and bailouts.