Greece’s prime minister this Monday defended holding new elections on June 25 to try to win an absolute majority after Sunday’s victory in parliaments was insufficient to form a government alone.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, leader of the conservative New Democracy (ND) party, said during a meeting with the president of the republic, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, according to the French agency AFP, that he wanted elections “as soon as possible”.
ND won Sunday’s election with 40.8% of the vote, according to final results.
Its main rival, Syriza, led by former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who embodied the hopes of Europe’s radical left when he came to power in 2015, suffered a major setback with 20% of the vote.
The Pasok-Kinal Social Democrats came in third with 11.5%.
With these results, Mitsotakis has inflicted the biggest defeat in half a century on the opposition, according to the US agency AP.
Victorious on Sunday night, Mitsotakis described the victory as a “political earthquake” and paved the way for new parliamentary elections.
Despite the magnitude of the victory, the 55-year-old leader, who has ruled Greece since 2019, narrowly missed out on an absolute majority by electing 146 deputies, while needing 151 to form a government alone.
The next elections will be held under a different electoral system, in which the winning party receives a bonus of up to 50 seats and thus guarantees an absolute majority, according to calculations by the ND.
In accordance with the procedure provided for in the Constitution, the President mandated Mitsotakis to attempt to form a coalition.
Mitsotakis has already announced that he will return the mandate this afternoon, claiming that he sees no possibility of forming a government in the current situation.
Similar mandates will later be assigned to the other four parties represented in the new parliament, but without any chance of success.
Faced with this deadlock, according to AFP, a superior judge will be appointed as interim prime minister and new elections will be called.
Source: DN
