Centre-right Party New Democracy Claims Victory in Greece

In yesterday's Greek parliamentary elections, the centre-right New Democracy party won approximately 39.9 percent of the vote, beating the current left-wing ruling party Syriza, which received about 31.5 percent. New Democracy was able to score ten percentage points more than in the 2015 elections. Their win means they will have an absolute majority of 158 out of 300 seats in the Greek parliament because the victorious party receives an extra 50 seats by Greek election law. Far-right party Golden Dawn, previously the third-largest faction in parliament, did not win any seats this time around. Despite the triumph of the conservatives, two new left-leaning parties are joining the parliament as well, Yanis Varoufakis’ MeRa 25 and Movement for Change.

The conservative candidate Kyriakos Mitsotakis will most likely become the next president of Greece, replacing Alexis Tsipras, who has governed the country since January 2015 on behalf of the left-wing alliance Syriza.

The Tsipras government had been in charge of negotiations for the final phase of the bail-out of the Greek economy by European institutions and the International Monetary Fund. The program officially ended in the summer of 2018. One of the most controversial moments of Tsipras’ mandate was the July 2015 public referendum on the terms of the agreement with the EU, with some of them rejected by the citizens but carried out by Tsipras.