LAST UPDATE | 25 Jun 2023

GREECE’S CONSERVATIVE NEW Democracy party won a landslide victory in the country’s second election in five weeks, official projections based on early returns showed, gaining enough parliamentary seats to form a government for a second four-year term.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ party is projected to win 40.5% of the vote, with his main rival, the left-wing Syriza party, suffering a crushing defeat with just under 18% projected support, even worse than its 20% in the last elections in May.

Today’s vote came just over a week after a migrant ship capsized and sank off the western coast of Greece, leaving hundreds of people dead and missing and calling into question the actions of Greek authorities and the country’s strict migration policy.

But the disaster, one of the worst in the Mediterranean in recent years, did not affect the election, with domestic economic issues at the forefront of voters’ minds.

The projections indicate Mitsotakis’ party will win enough of Parliament’s 300 seats to form a stable government thanks to a change in the electoral law that grants the winning party bonus seats.

The previous election in May, conducted under a proportional representation system, left him five seats short of a majority despite winning 41% of the vote.

In all, eight parties are projected to surpass the 3% threshold to enter Parliament, including a far right party and ultra-religious party.

The number of parties that make it into Parliament will affect how many seats the winner will hold.

Mitsotakis, 55, campaigned on a platform of securing economic growth and political stability as Greece gradually recovers from a brutal nearly decade-long financial crisis.

His main rival, 48-year-old Alexis Tsipras, served as prime minister from 2015 to 2019 — some of the most turbulent years of Greece’s nearly decade-long financial crisis.

If the exit poll projections are confirmed, his performance today leaves him fighting for his political survival.

After his poor showing in May elections, he had struggled to rally his voter base, a task complicated by splinter parties formed by some of his former associates.