Conservatives face absolute majority in new elections in Greece today

In Greece, elections will be held again this Sunday. Although the ruling New Democracy (ND) under Kyriakos Mitsotakis won the elections at the end of May, it fell short of an absolute majority. According to the latest polls, it could work this time.

On Sunday, parliamentary elections will be held in Greece for the second time in a month. In the May election, the ruling conservatives of New Democracy (ND) under Kyriakos Mitsotakis won the election clearly, but fell short of an absolute majority.

Due to an electoral reform, a sole government is now very likely after the new election. It is unclear to what extent the recent boat accident with several hundred dead refugees will influence this election.

According to a poll by the polling institute Rass, ND won 40.2 percent of the vote, 23.4 percentage points ahead of the largest opposition party, former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' left-wing SYRIZA. With 41.9 percent of the votes for ND, the GPO Institute also comes to a similar prognosis. There, the gap to SYRIZA is as high as 25.6 percentage points.

In the parliamentary elections on 21 May, ND emerged as the clear winner with around 41 percent of the vote, while SYRIZA won 20 percent. Since no party achieved an absolute majority and coalitions have no tradition in Greece, new elections will be held this Sunday.

Due to an electoral reform, an electoral system with bonus seats will again apply to this election, albeit in a weakened form. According to this electoral law, the strongest party receives at least 20 additional seats in the 300-member parliament, and even 50 additional seats if it receives more than 40 percent of the vote. If ND achieves a similarly high result as in the first election, it would have an absolute majority of the number of seats in parliament and could govern alone.

However, one issue that dominated this election campaign until the end was the recent boat accident off the Greek coast, in which hundreds of refugees lost their lives. In this context, Mitsotakis openly attacked SYRIZA for its migration policy during its time in power, as the Greek newspaper Kathimerini recently reported.

Mitsotakis also referred to the overcrowded Moria refugee camp, which was put into operation under the SYRIZA government before it burned down in September 2020.

Left-wing parties, on the other hand, see the conservative government of the past four years as responsible for this. Due to the strict controls it has introduced at sea, smuggling gangs are now choosing more dangerous, longer routes – past Greece – directly to Italy, the accusation goes. The fishing boat, which was carrying 500 to 700 migrants, sank on its way from Libya to Europe.

From around the world