Greece: Greece’s conservative New Democracy party emerged victorious in the country’s parliamentary elections, granting reformist leader Mr. Kyriakos Mitsotakis another term as prime minister. With official results pouring in from approximately 90 percent of voting centres nationwide on Sunday,
Mr. Mitsotakis’s party captured slightly over 40 percent of the vote, while the left-wing Syriza party, his primary rival, suffered a devastating defeat with just under 18 percent, marking a decline even more pronounced than their 20 percent result in the previous May elections.
Mr. Mitsotakis hailed the “strong mandate” after the landslide victory. “The people have given us a safe majority. Major reforms will proceed rapidly,” the PM commented in a televised address.
New Democracy was projected to win about 157 or 158 of the 300 seats in parliament due to a change in the electoral law that grants the winning party bonus seats. The previous election in May, conducted under a proportional representation system, left the party five seats short of a majority despite winning 41 percent of the vote.
Mr. Mitsotakis’s main rival was Mr. Alexis Tsipras, the 48-year-old head of the left-wing Syriza party. Mr. Tsipras, who previously held the position of prime minister from 2015 to 2019, governed Greece during a period marked by considerable upheaval due to the prolonged financial crisis that plagued the country for nearly a decade.
Mr. Mitsotakis, 55, secured a second four-year term as prime minister after New Democracy won by a huge margin in May but fell short of gaining enough parliamentary seats to form a government.
The new electoral system grants a bonus of between 25 and 50 seats to the winning party, depending on its performance, which makes it easier for a party to win more than the required 151 seats in the parliament to form a government.