New legislative elections will take place on June 25 in Greece, according to a presidential decree published on Monday, eight days after elections which did not allow the right to win an absolute majority despite its large victory.
“New elections will be held on June 25,” said the presidential decree. The date of June 25 is the date put forward by former Conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis after his Conservative party’s victory in the May 21 election.
His New Democracy party 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, who suffered a scathing setback.
But this result did not allow him to obtain an absolute majority while he ruled out forming a coalition with a minority partner.
As soon as the results were known, he had called for new legislative elections which 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 wants a second term, is betting on this second ballot to win an absolute majority.
The legislative elections of May 21 were held by simple proportional representation and the right-wing camp obtained 146 seats while it needed 151 to be able to form a stable government on its own.
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.
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.
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.
29/05/2023 19:06:56 – Athens (AFP) – © 2023 AFP