Greek PM wins no-majority election but rejects coalitions – Europe

Kyriakos Mitsotakis managed to achieve victory this Sunday in the Greek elections. The conservative New Democracy party won 41% of the vote and 145 seats in parliament, just six of the 151 needed for a majority. The party won all but one of Greece’s electoral districts.

The prime minister stated, in his victory speech, that the Greeks want to give New Democracy a new four-year mandate and dismissed the idea of ​​coalitions. “We have an obligation to rise to the occasion. Together we are going to win the next battle, which starts tomorrow, so that in the next elections an autonomous New Democracy is also confirmed mathematically”, he told his supporters.

In Greece, the recent electoral reform defines that, in the next three days, the three main parties will have to form a coalition government. If that doesn’t happen, Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou will have to name a caretaker government to prepare new elections in early July. In second place was the left-wing Syriza party, which governed Greece between 2015 and 2019. The party led by former prime minister Alexis Tsipras won 20% of the vote and 71 seats in parliament, a result described by himself as “extremely negative”. “.

However, Tsipras is still hopeful for a second round: “The electoral cycle is not over yet, it is possible that there will be a second round, so we don’t have the luxury of time. We have to make the necessary changes now to fight the next electoral battle in the best possible conditions”.

In third place was the center-left Pasok party, with 12.1% and 43 deputies.