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New Democracy wins absolute landslide
Welcome to the weekly round-up of news by Kathimerini English Edition. The ruling New Democracy party of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis unequivocally and emphatically won in an electoral landslide on Sunday. On the flipside, leftist SYRIZA of Alexis Tsipras suffered significant losses and performed worse than it did in 2019. The difference between ND and main opposition SYRIZA is estimated to exceed 20%, with ND getting 40% of the vote with SYRIZA trailing at 20%. However, New Democracy is not expected to be able to form a government on its own as it will probably be just short of the 150 required parliamentarians with 146. In his speech following the vote, Mitsotakis stressed that the result was a mandate for a majority government, suggesting that Greece will not have a coalition government and that a second round of elections will be held in the coming weeks. Tsipras acknowledged that this was a very negative result for his party and stated that there will have to be changes. However, he indicated that he will probably lead the party in the next election due to the tight timeframe. Three other parties exceeded the required 3% vote threshold, with projections suggesting that the next parliament will be comprised of a total of five political parties. Center-left PASOK also saw significant gains, with it expected to exceed 12%. This marks a 40% increase from the previous elections. The Greek Communist Party also had a strong performance with 7%. Finally, Greek Solution also saw gains and increased the number of its parliamentarians from 10 to 16. Leftist party MeRA25 led by former SYRIZA finance minister Yanis Varoufakis failed to enter parliament as it only received 2.5% of the popular vote.
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OPINION
 [InTime News]The huge win by New Democracy in today’s elections creates a whole different political landscape than the one most pundits were predicting. The Conservatives achieved a landslide victory with around 41% of the vote. Theoretically this allows them to form a coalition government with the third party, center left PASOK which is projected to get just under 12%. Together they could have a majority in the 300 seat Parliament. Still, with such an overwhelming result, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is all but certain to opt for a widely expected second election, on June 25 or July 2, with the goal of forming a single party government. Three preliminary messages from this first electoral test in four years: First, the government still commands by far the support of the largest segment of the voting population, and now has a mandate to boldly move forward with many necessary reforms, at the same time avoiding falling into a trap of arrogance that might come with such a big victory. Second, main opposition SYRIZA not only failed to make the necessary leap forward to ensure for itself the chance to form the next government, but scoring a disappointing 20% of the vote will lead to internal friction which might be silenced for a while only by the need to remain united in light of the upcoming second election in just over a month from now. Third, PASOK can be described as the other big winner of today’s political earthquake achieving a huge increase of its vote (from 8% in the 2019 elections, to 12%) and is expected in the campaign that will follow in the next few weeks to push ahead with an effort to increase its percentage further in the second election, even possibly challenging SYRIZA for second place. The Communist Party saw its support increase to 7% thus consolidating its position as the country’s fourth political force. Similarly, Greek Solution with 4,5% remains steady in fifth place. And then there are the three smaller parties, Mera25 and Freedom Sailing in the far left, and Victory in the far right, all just under the 3% threshold for entering parliament. They all face an uphill battle in the second election, albeit an important one in the sense that the number of parties entering Parliament will have an impact on the number of seats the first party will have and hence its ability to form a government by itself. A House with 5 parties creates a very different equation that one with six, seven or eight parties. |
| CHART OF THE WEEK |
 Property investors seeking to acquire a Golden Visa permanent residence permit have completed at least 1.57 billion euros’ worth of transactions between March 2022 and March 2023 (as the minimum threshold is a 250,000-euro investment). Over 6,064 requests for permits have been submitted with 2,072 of these having already been issued, while 3,976 are pending. However, it is most likely that the true sum of the transactions is closer to 2 billion euros as many buyers choose to acquire more expensive properties or even more than one. Greece has also benefitted from the recent abolition of the equivalent Portuguese program, as well as its likely end in Spain. |
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| ECONOMY IN A NUTSHELL |
| “The market appeared calm ahead of the elections with the Athens Exchange (ATHEX) general index posting gains for the third consecutive week. The benchmark closed at 1,132.34 points, up 0.85% from last week.” |
| “The European Commission’s troubling estimation of Greece’s current account deficit at 11.8% of GDP in 2022 has set off alarm bells, with Bank of Greece Governor Yiannis Stournaras also making several public interventions on the issue. Economists warn that Greece must increase its domestic production.” |
| “The critically important port of Alexandroupolis will receive 24 million euros in European funding to upgrade its infrastructure. The port has been used by NATO as a supply entry point of for its eastern flank and is also expected to become an important energy hub for the whole region.” |
| WHAT'S ON THE AGENDA |
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Editor's Pick Reversing the massive brain drain is not something that can be accomplished at the flip of a switchDora AntoniouRead the article |
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