Early exit polls show that the ruling New Democracy party led by Kyriakos Mitsotakis is on course for a historic victory in the Greek elections.
According to polls, New Democracy is on track to win 40-44% of the vote, while the main opposition party, the leftist Syriza, is expected to win 16-19%.
The leftist party Pasok is currently seeking third place with 10-13%.
If the polls are correct, the far-right party Spartiates (Spartans) will also enter parliament, as it is expected to get 4-6% of the vote, above the 3% required under Greek electoral rules.
No party won an overall majority in the first round of voting on May 21.
The ruling New Democracy party won 40.79% of the vote (146 seats), the main opposition party Syriza 20.07% (71 seats) and the socialist PASOK party came third.
If, as appears likely, conservative leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, 55, wins with his New Democracy party, he will benefit from a new electoral rule that gives the winning party a bonus of 25-50 seats, depending on its margin of victory .
“We are voting so that the people can have a stable government for the next four years,” Mitsotakis said after voting in northern Athens. “I am sure that the Greek people will vote with maturity for their personal prosperity and the stability of the country.”
His main challenger is Alexis Tsipras, 48, who leads the left-wing Syriza party and served as prime minister from 2015 to 2019, some of the most turbulent years of Greece’s nearly decade-long financial crisis .
In May’s election, Tsipras fared dismally, coming a distant second, 20 percentage points behind New Democracy, and this latest poll looks set to repeat that pattern.
Speaking after voting in a neighborhood in western Athens, Tsipras appeared to accept that his party would be in opposition for the next four years.
“These crucial elections not only determine who will rule the country, they will determine our lives for the next four years, but they determine the quality of our democracy,” Tsipras said. “It is determining whether we will have an uncontrolled government or a strong opposition. This role can only be played by Syriza.”
New kids on the block
A number of smaller games could also affect the outcome if they reach the 3% threshold needed to qualify, as the Spartans (Spartans) appear to be doing.
The others include Plefsi Eleftherias (Freedom Sailing), the party of Zoe Konstantpoulou who was speaker of the Hellenic Parliament for six months in 2015 when Syriza first came to power.
And there is the conservative Niki (Victoria) party, led by Dimitris Natsios, a theologian with strong ties to the Orthodox Church.
Disaster of a shipwreck of migrants
Sunday’s vote comes after hundreds of migrants died and went missing in southern Greece when an overcrowded fishing trawler en route from Libya to Italy capsized and sank.
The shipwreck sparked criticism of how Greek authorities handled the rescue, as well as the country’s restrictive migration policy.
But the disaster, one of the worst in the Mediterranean in recent years, has done little to reduce Mitsotakis’ 20-point lead in opinion polls over Tsipras, with the economy at the forefront of most voters’ concerns .
As Greece gradually recovers from its brutal financial crisis, voters seem happy to return to power a prime minister who delivered economic growth and reduced unemployment.
