Greece’s conservative New Democracy party stormed to victory in a parliamentary election on Sunday with voters giving reformist Kyriakos Mitsotakis another four-year term as prime minister.
With most votes counted, centre-right New Democracy was leading with 40.5% of the vote and 158 seats in the 300-seat parliament, interior ministry figures showed.
It was more than 20 points clear of Syriza, a radical leftist party that won elections in 2015 at the peak of a debilitating debt crisis and ran the country until 2019, when it lost to New Democracy.
This freely given support only increases my responsibility to respond to peoples’ hopes. I personally feel an even stronger obligation to serve the country with all my abilities,” Mitsotakis told cheering crowds at New Democracy headquarters in downtown Athens.
Sunday’s vote was a humiliating defeat for Syriza, which lost more than 30 MPs. Fringe parties of the political left and right – including an anti-immigrant party calling themselves the Spartans – got a foothold in parliament.
“This result is negative for democracy and society,” Tsipras said, referring to far-right parties winning votes. For Syriza, he said, a “great and creative historic circle had closed.”
“We have to look upon that with pride,” he said.
Mitsotakis, 55, a former banker and scion of a powerful political family, has promised to boost revenue from the vital tourist industry, create jobs and increase wages to near the European Union average.
Source: Reuters, Photo: facebook/neadhmokratia