Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the leader of Greece’s center-right New Democracy party, has comfortably won a second four-year term as prime minister, on a night that also saw gains for the far right.
Mitsotakis is set to return to the prime minister’s office in a stronger position with his party’s resounding victory in Sunday’s elections, which were dominated by financial stability and cost-of-living issues.
With nearly 100% of the vote counted, New Democracy had garnered over 40% of the vote. Its main opposition, leftist party Syriza trailed far behind in the preliminary results with over 17%.
A total of eight parties, including centrist PASOK-KINAL and leftist KKE, crossed the 3% threshold to enter the Greek parliament. They included groups on the far-right; the biggest surprise in Sunday’s vote was the entry to parliament of the little known, strongly anti-migrant Spartans party, backed by disgraced former lawmaker Ilias Kasidiaris, who is currently serving a prison sentence of over 13 years for membership in a criminal organization.
Credit: cnn.com
