Daily Times

Greek voters headed to the polls again Sunday in an election where conservative front-runner Kyriakos Mitsotakis is seeking a second term and an absolute parliamentary majority to form a “stable government”. The 55-year-old Harvard graduate, who steered Greece from the coronavirus pandemic back to two consecutive years of strong growth, had already scored a thumping win in an election just a month ago. But having fallen short of five seats in parliament to be able to form a single-party government, Mitsotakis chose to ask 9.8 million Greek voters back to the ballot boxes.

Casting his vote, Mitsotakis, who hails from one of Greece’s most influential political families said the country is “voting for a second time in a few weeks to get a stable and effective government”. With surveys ahead of the election giving the conservative leader a comfortable margin ahead, his nearest rival, former leftist prime minister Alexis Tsipras, urged voters not to give Mitsotakis such a big majority that would allow his party to act without checks and balances. The vote will decide “whether we will have an uncontrolled government or balance in our democracy and political system,” Tsipras said, casting his ballot.

Mitsotakis trounced Tsipras by more than 20 percentage points in the May election. As election rules this time round would accord up to 50 bonus seats to the winner of the vote, Mitsotakis’s New Democracy party is widely projected to emerge victorious. The main danger facing him would be a larger no-show rate at the polls because of the perceived foregone outcome.

Another factor that could affect Mitsotakis’ chances at an outright majority would be the number of small parties that make it past the three percent threshold. Urging a strong turnout, he has warned of the possibility of a third election if he fails again to get a majority. “I hope we don’t have to meet again in early August,” he told Skai TV on Friday.