Greece’s ruling New Democratic Party is expected to take a clear lead in Sunday’s election, despite recent scandals and is unlikely to take power immediately under new proportional representation laws.
The center-right NDP, led by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, leads its main rival, the radical left Syriza party, by at least 5 percentage points in recent opinion polls, while the centre-left The Pan-Democratic Alliance came in third.
Under electoral laws introduced by the former Syriza government, a party must win more than 45 percent of the vote to secure a majority in the 300-seat Greek parliament. That is unlikely to materialize on Sunday, meaning a coalition government could emerge.
Under Greece’s constitution, the party with the most votes is given a three-day mandate to form a government through a coalition if it does not win outright on election day. If unsuccessful, the second and third highest-voted parties are given an equal chance.
“It all depends on how the NDP votes tonight,” said Wolfango Piccoli, co-president of risk analytics firm Teneo.
“If Mitsotakis believes that his approval ratings are low and he will not be able to form a government in the second election, he will aim to form a coalition government in the next few days,” he added.
Mitsotakis, discredited by a wiretapping scandal and questions over his handling of a train accident that killed 57 people, has repeatedly said he wants to avoid a coalition government and favor a majority government.
This could be achieved by holding a second election using a new electoral law introduced by his government that awards up to 50 extra seats in the second round to the party that received the most votes in the first election.
Greek voters are concerned about the high cost of living, with inflation weighing heavily on the population and with many at risk of poverty or social exclusion.
But it will also be the first election to be held without the oversight of European partners in more than a decade. After years of bailouts and austerity measures following the debt crisis, Greece’s economy has emerged as one of the euro zone’s strongest recoveries from the Covid-19 pandemic and is on the verge of reaching investment grade again.
Dimitris Papadimitriou, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said: “Over the past four years, the macro economy has certainly been insane in terms of growth, falling unemployment and falling debt-to-GDP ratios.”
“The other aspect is the cost of living . . . Despite a drop in unemployment, average wages in Greece remain low, resulting in the second-highest purchasing power in the EU, after Bulgaria,” he added.
Syriza leader Alexis Tsípras is still widely remembered as the politician who nearly forced Greece to Get out of the eurozone.
“Syriza has been unable to convince voters that they can deliver a better economic package than what the NDP is proposing,” Piccoli said.
“Their information was confusing and completely missed the opportunity to use an economy card,” he added.
If a second election does take place, it is expected to be held in late June or early July.