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Greek PM Alexis Tsipras calls rival to concede election defeat Greek elections: landslide victory for centre-right New Democracy party
(31 minutes later)
The Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, has called the opposition leader, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, to congratulate him on victory in the general election on Sunday, an official of Mitsotakis’s party has said. Voters in Greece have given Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ centre-right New Democracy party a resounding mandate to form a new government after it won by a landslide over the incumbent leftwing Syriza party, which has ruled in coalition since 2015.
The official said the handover of power would take place on Monday after Mitsotakis’s swearing in as prime minister. The outgoing prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, called Mitsotakis to congratulate him on his party’s victory in the general election on Sunday, New Democracy said. The official handover of power will take place on Monday after the 51-year-old leader is sworn in as premier.
Official election projections showed Mitsotakis’s conservative New Democracy party winning 39.8% of the vote, compared with the governing leftwing Syriza party’s 31.6%. With 10% of the vote counted, the country’s interior ministry said the conservatives had gained 39.8% compared with 31.6% for Syriza.
The projections also had the extreme right-wing Golden Dawn close to missing the 3% threshold needed to enter parliament. The lead would give New Democracy a majority with 158 seats in the Greek parliament, more than double its current representation in the 300-seat house.
Yiannis Theodoropoulos, of SingularLogic, the company compiling official election results for the Greek interior ministry, said the projections showed New Democracy on course for 158 of the 300 seats in Greece’s parliament, a comfortable governing majority. “If Golden Dawn gets into parliament, that could change,” said Yannis Theodoropoulos, an official at the ministry, adding that it was unlikely that the neo-fascist group would hit the 3% threshold required to win seats. “Given the data we have … that is far from certain.”
The former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis’s MeRA25 was on course for as much as 5% of the vote. Mitsotakis, the son of a former prime minister, also received a congratulatory call from Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Tensions between the two Nato rivals have been rising in recent months over conflicting claims to hydrocarbons off Cyprus.
New Democracy officials described the result as “historic” and a personal victory for Mitsotakis, a former banker who has been at pains to reform the party since assuming the helm three years ago. Not since 2007, two years before Greece descended into economic crisis and prolonged recession, will New Democracy have had such a presence in parliament. Jubilant New Democracy officials described the result as historic. Many called it a personal victory for Mitsotakis, a reformist ex-banker who has been at pains to modernise and revamp one of Europe’s most conservative parties since being elevated to its helm in January 2016.
Tsipras called the vote three months ahead of schedule after Syriza’s staggering defeat in European parliament elections in May. New Democracy routed the leftists by 9.5 percentage points – a margin of victory not seen since European elections were first contested in Greece in 1981. “Credit has to go to him and his strategy of opening up and moving the party towards the centre,” Haris Theocharis, a candidate MP and former head of public revenues, told the Guardian. “It is a result that comes with a lot of responsibility.”
Sunday’s election was billed as transformational: the winning party will form Greece’s first post-bailout government after almost a decade of unprecedented recession. Kept afloat by international rescue funds since 2010, the thrice-bailed-out nation has been forced to endure punishing austerity in return for remaining in the eurozone. Not since 2007, two years before the debt-burdened nation descended into economic crisis and prolonged recession, has New Democracy had such presence in parliament. Many of its MPs will be first-time politicians, men and women who after four and a half years of often rollercoaster leadership under Tsipras were drawn to the party’s pledge to re-energise the economy by attracting foreign investment and creating jobs.
Casting his vote in the working class district of Peristeri, the 51-year-old Mitsotakis expressed optimism. “Today all Greeks take the fortunes of the country in their hands and I am sure that tomorrow a better day will dawn for all,” he said, smiling broadly. “These new faces are the faces of renewal,” said one of Mitsotakis’s senior advisers. “For the last two years, Kyriakos has spent every week somewhere in the country listening to people’s problems. He knows what they are.”
Tsipras called the vote three months ahead of schedule after Syriza’s staggering defeat in European parliament elections in May. New Democracy routed the leftists then by 9.5 percentage points – a margin of victory not seen since European elections were first contested in Greece in 1981.
Sunday’s election was billed as transformational: the winning party will form Greece’s first post-bailout government after almost a decade of recession. Kept afloat by international rescue funds since 2010, the thrice-bailed-out nation has been forced to endure punishing austerity in return for remaining in the eurozone.
Casting his vote in the working-class district of Peristeri, Mitsotakis expressed optimism. “Today all Greeks take the fortunes of the country in their hands, and I am sure that tomorrow a better day will dawn for all,” he said, smiling broadly.
New Democracy’s revival has been linked to Mitsotakis’s efforts to entice centrists and to the conservatives’ ability to siphon off votes from Golden Dawn by taking a tough stance on immigration and on an accord struck by Tsipras settling a long-running name row over Macedonia, Greece’s neighbour to the north.New Democracy’s revival has been linked to Mitsotakis’s efforts to entice centrists and to the conservatives’ ability to siphon off votes from Golden Dawn by taking a tough stance on immigration and on an accord struck by Tsipras settling a long-running name row over Macedonia, Greece’s neighbour to the north.
The poll was the first to take place at the height of summer since 1928, and there were worries that many would miss the vote, preferring to go to the beach or remain at home rather than traipsing to polling stations in temperatures expected to reach 40C. The poll was the first to take place at the height of summer since 1928, and there were worries that many would miss the vote, preferring to go to the beach or remain at home rather than traipse to polling stations in temperatures expected to reach 40C.
Twenty parties contested the race for seats in the 300-member parliament. Speaking on television shows on Sunday morning, analysts mused that the vote could be swung by hundreds of thousands of younger Greeks “deciding to go to the beach or polling stations”. Smaller parties such as the ultra-nationalist Greek Solution and leftist MeRA25 had younger Greeks as their target groups. Twenty parties contested the race for seats in the 300-member parliament. On television shows on Sunday morning, analysts mused that the vote could be swung by hundreds of thousands of younger Greeks “deciding to go to the beach or polling stations”. Smaller parties, such as the ultra-nationalist Greek Solution and leftist MeRA25, headed by Yanis Varoufakis, the former finance minister, were targeting younger Greeks.
“Voting once every four years is not enough for democracy,” Varoufakis told reporters as he emerged from a polling station in a coastal area of southern Athens. “Democracy belongs only to those who have the courage to defend it. Today, the only way to defend it is by voting on the basis of parties’ programmes and records, Congratulations to all those citizens who get off their sofas and vote.” “Voting once every four years is not enough for democracy,” Varoufakis told reporters as he emerged from a polling station in a coastal area of southern Athens. “Democracy belongs only to those who have the courage to defend it. Today, the only way to defend it is by voting on the basis of parties’ programmes and records. Congratulations to all those citizens who get off their sofas and vote.”
Varoufakis’s party appears to have fared well, gaining 3.4% of the vote and nine MPs in parliament.
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