Greece’s ruling New Democracy party wins general election but lacks a majority to govern alone

Greece’s ruling New Democracy party won Sunday’s general election, early results show, but without an outright majority to rule alone amid bitter consequences. by a train accident that killed 57 people.

With just over 50 percent of the votes counted, the party of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis won 40.9 percent of the vote, a 20-point lead over its closest rival, the Syriza party of leftist Alexis Tsipras. , which got 20.1 percent.

Mitsotakis would start tough negotiations starting Monday with his rivals to seek a coalition, or he could choose to run for new elections, probably in early July.

Mitsotakis’ popularity took a major blow after a deadly train accident on February 28 that claimed 57 lives after an intercity passenger train accidentally ran onto the same rail track as an oncoming freight train.

The government initially blamed the accident on human error, even though Greece’s notoriously poor rail network has suffered from years of underinvestment.

Early reactions from the bigwigs in his party suggest a new vote is on the way.

“It’s a big surprise… an amazing result,” former Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias told ERT state television.

Takis Theodorikakos, a minister and senior official in Mitsotakis’s party, told private Skai television the result suggests the Conservatives could get enough in a second election “to continue reforms as a self-government.”

Another New Democracy minister, Theodoros Skylakakis, said the reactions of ‘other parties’ show that we will be led to a second election.’

Senior Syriza official Dimitris Papadimoulis, vice president of the European Parliament, told state television ERT that, if confirmed, the result would be “significantly far” from the party’s goals and mark a failure to rally opposition to the government.

Turnout reached just 56 percent, as many had likely been left off the ballot given the second early voting.

Violent clashes broke out between police and protesters in Athens in March as Mitsotakis apologized to the families of the 57 who died in the nation’s worst rail disaster.

The 55-year-old Harvard graduate and former McKinsey consultant had entered the election as the frontrunner, and Greece is currently enjoying fairly solid economic health.

Unemployment and inflation have eased and growth this year is projected to be twice that of the European Union, a far cry from the crippling debt crisis a decade ago.

With a post-Covid tourism renaissance pushing the country’s growth to 5.9 percent in 2022, Mitsotakis has campaigned on a pledge to harness the economic gains.

But fears over stagnant wages and rising costs remain a key concern for voters, something his rival Tsipras had tried to exploit.

However, the result meant that Tsipras is unlikely to make a comeback after a first term from 2015 to 2019, during which he led difficult negotiations with creditors that nearly kicked Greece out of the euro.

Rather, it could put the spotlight on the socialist Pasok-Kinal party, led by 44-year-old Nikos Androulakis.

Exit polls have the potential kingmaker at between 9.5 and 12.5 percent. Androulakis had been seen from the beginning as a possible coalition partner for Mitsotakis, but things turned sour when he discovered that he had been under state surveillance.

The wiretapping scandal, which erupted last year, forced the resignation of the head of the intelligence service and Mitsotakis’s nephew, who was a top adviser to his office.

In the run-up to the vote, Androulakis had firmly ruled out forming a partnership with Mitsotakis’s conservatives.

While the Socialist party is closer politically to Syriza, Androulakis had said in March that he would only back a coalition if neither Tsipras nor Mitsotakis became prime minister.

Prior to the election, voters raised concerns about the cost of living and labor issues.

‘Life, especially for young people, is very difficult. Unemployment is high, there are no job prospects and wages disappear at the end of the month,” said Dora Vasilopoulou, a 41-year-old Athens resident.

In Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city, Giorgos Antonopoulos, 39, who works in a commercial shop, said: “Salaries run out in the middle of the month and nothing is done to fix this problem. We work just to survive.

Meanwhile, five people have been arrested near Karditsa in central Greece on suspicion of voter fraud after they were found illegally in possession of ballots and more than 6,000 euros ($6,490) in cash, police said Sunday. .

Sunday’s elections are Greece’s first since its economy was removed from the strict supervision of international lenders who had provided bailout funds during the country’s nearly decade-long financial crisis.

The vote took place under a new proportional representation electoral law, which makes it particularly difficult for any party to win enough votes to form a government of its own.

But for the next elections, the law will change again, switching to a system that rewards the leading party with additional seats and making it easier for it to win a majority of parliamentary seats.

In power since 2019, Mitsotakis has delivered unexpectedly high growth, a sharp drop in unemployment and a country poised to return to investment grade on the global bond market for the first time since losing market access in 2010, by beginning of its financial crisis.

Debts with the International Monetary Fund were canceled prematurely. European governments and the IMF pumped 280 billion euros ($300 billion) into the Greek economy in emergency loans between 2010 and 2018 to prevent the eurozone member’s bankruptcy.

In return, they demanded to punish cost-cutting measures and reforms that caused the country’s economy to shrink by a quarter.