Greece holds second-round general election, conservative party likely to return to office

Greeks went to the polls on Sunday for the second round of general elections in little over a month to elect a new parliament, with conservative leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis expected to win a second term in office.

The polls opened at 7 a.m. local time (0400 GMT) and will close at 7 p.m. (1600 GMT) on Sunday, with more than 9.8 million Greeks reported eligible to vote.

Mitsotakis, 55, is eyeing a second four-year term as prime minister after his New Democracy party (ND) won by a huge margin on May 21, 20 points clear of the leftist Syriza party that ruled Greece from 2015 to 2019.

However, to form a single-party government, Mitsotakis needs an absolute parliamentary majority. He fallen short of five seats in government and chose to ask Greek voters back to the ballot boxes.

With a new electoral law now favoring the winning party with bonus seats, he is hoping to win enough seats to form a strong majority in the 300-member parliament.

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.

Greeks head to polls Sunday as right-wing party slated to win

Greeks will head to the polls for national elections on Sunday.

Opinion polls in recent days have shown New Democracy with more than 40% percent of the vote, with Syriza headed by Alexis Tsipras trailing at about 20%.

Opposition leader Tsipras served as prime minister from 2015 to 2019 and, at the age of 48, is now fighting for his political survival.

Mitsotakis is widely seen as having successfully returned the Greek economy to stability and growth after a severe debt crisis and three international bailouts.

Although many Greeks are struggling with the cost-of-living crisis, he has promised to lower unemployment to below 10 percent some time in 2024.

During the past four years, tax burdens were eased, and while the Covid-19 pandemic wiped out Greece’s vital tourism revenues, the country has since bounced back strongly with growth of 8.3 percent in 2021 and 5.9 percent in 2022.

That was helped in part by over 57 billion euros ($62 billion) dished out by the government to cushion the impact of the health crisis and inflation.

79 migrants die after boat capsizes off Greece

At least 79 migrants have died and hundreds of others went missing after their overloaded boat capsized on its way to Greece.

Sunday’s vote comes days after hundreds of migrants died and went missing in southern Greece on June 14th when an over-crowded fishing trawler capsized and sank, throwing into question European migration policy, and in particular Greece’s treatment of migrants.

The shipwreck disaster sidelined other issues in the run-up to the election, including a cost of living crisis, and a deadly rail crash in February that exposed shortcomings in that public transport system.

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