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Radio France Internationale
Radio France Internationale
World
RFI

Greek PM calls for new elections after winning broad but inconclusive victory

Supporters of the conservative New Democracy party wave flags and celebrate in front of its headquarters, in central Athens shortly after exit polls were announced. AFP - ARIS MESSINIS

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has called for new elections "possibly on June 25", a day after his conservative New Democracy party fell short of winning an absolute majority.

Mitsotakis’s centre-right New Democracy party won 40.8 percent of the vote versus a disappointing 20 percent for centre-left Syriza led by Alexis Tsipras.

The prime minister described the victory as a “political earthquake” and said the result showed that Greeks had given his party a mandate for a four-year government.

The size of the win came as a surprise – Mitsotakis’s administration has been dogged by a wiretapping scandal, the Covid pandemic, a cost of living crisis and a deadly rail crash in February which triggered public outrage.

But under a new voting system based on proportional representation, New Democracy is five seats short of the 151 required to form a majority.

'No possibility' of forming coalition

"We will head for new elections... as soon as possible," Mitsotakis told President Katerina Sakellaropoulou, adding that there was no possibility of forming a new government under the current parliament.

Sakellaropoulou was due to hand Mitsotakis an official mandate to try to form a coalition government after failing to win an absolute majority.

He is invited to lead negotiations with other parties to try to form a coalition.

If that fails, she will pass it to the second and third parties – Syriza and then socialist PASOK.

Failing that, she will appoint a caretaker government until a new vote about a month later.

This appears to be Mitsotakis's preferred option.

In his victory speech on Sunday, he said that people gave him the mandate to “rule strong and autonomous”.

A second ballot in June allows the winning party to pick up bonus seats to be able to govern alone.

“The people wanted the choice of a Greece run by a majority government and by New Democracy without the help of others," he said.

6 percent growth

The centre-right has governed Greece for the past four years and growth was close to 6 percent last year.

Sunday’s election was Greece’s first since its economy stopped being strictly supervised by international lenders who had provided bailout funds during the country’s nearly decade-long financial crisis.

The result was a major blow for Syriza’s leader Alexis Tsipras, who came to power in 2015 campaigning against the austerity measures imposed by international bailouts, but ended up agreeing to creditors' demands.

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