Greeks vote in second general election in 5 weeks, with conservative party favoured to win majority

PTI, Jun 25, 2023, 10:03 AM IST

Polls have opened in Greece in the second general election in less than two months, with the conservative party in power for the last four years a strong favourite to win with a wide majority.

The 55-year-old conservative leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis is eyeing a second four-year term as prime minister after his New Democracy party won by a huge margin in May but fell short of gaining enough parliamentary seats to form a government. With a new electoral law now favouring the winning party with bonus seats, he is hoping to win enough seats to form a strong majority in the 300-member parliament.

His main rival is Alexis Tsipras, the 48-year-old head of the left-wing Syriza party who served as prime minister from 2015-2019, during some of the most turbulent years of Greece’s nearly decade-long financial crisis.

Tsipras fared dismally in the May elections, coming a distant second, 20 per cent behind New Democracy. He has been trying to rally his voter base, a task complicated by splinter parties formed by some of his former associates.

Sunday’s vote comes just over a week after hundreds of migrants died and went missing in southern Greece when an over-crowded fishing trawler capsized and sank, drawing criticism over how Greek authorities handled the rescue.

But the disaster, one of the worst in the Mediterranean in recent years, did little to dent Mitsotakis’ 20-point lead in opinion polls over Tsipras, with Greeks mainly focused on economic issues. As Greece gradually recovers from its brutal, financial crisis, voters appear happy to return to power a prime minister who delivered economic growth and lowered unemployment.