Mitsotakis resigns to form a government and lead Greece to new elections

Greek Prime Minister, conservative Kyriakos Mitsotakis, on Monday confirmed analysts’ forecasts on election night and declined to explore the formation of a coalition government. So, in about a monththe citizens of Greece will be called to the polls again in a kind of second round in which Mitsotakis this time hopes to get an absolute majority that will allow him to rule alone.

On Monday morning, Mitsotakis met with the nation’s presidentKaterina Sakellaropoulou, and was tasked with forming a new executive power. Although the conservative leader had three days to try, after only a few hours he had already informed Sakellaropoulou that he was unable to form a new government.

According to the protocol, the Greek president will meet with the leader of the second party by the number of votes in the presidential villa this Wednesday, Alexis Tsipras, submit the same request. “I think the country needs a strong and stable government today, with a four-year perspective,” Mitsotakis said.

Apart from Tsipras’s political weakness, which they themselves disputed after the fiasco, arithmetic prevents the formation of a Syriza-led government. As well as the social democratic Pasok, the third party with the number of votes with 41 MPs, which is also expected to receive the same task from the president after Tsipras fails to fulfill his task. And that’s it not even adding the seats of the three progressive powers, Syriza, Pasok and the Communist Party reached the 151 seats needed to cross the absolute majority threshold in the 300-seat parliament.

This goal is within reach of the right-wing bloc, which consists of Mitsotakis’s New Democracy and greek solution, which received 146 and 16 representatives respectively.

The Greek solution is a party with far-right postulates and which gathered a good part of the voters of Golden Dawn, a neo-fascist party that fell out of favor after the conviction of its leaders for various criminal offences.

New delivery system

Despite the possible partners in the government, the Greek electoral system offers no incentive for the prime minister to conclude a pact, since in this case political deadlock and the need for repeat elections, it establishes a new system of distribution of seats favored by the party with the most votes. Specifically, it retains the same system of strict proportionality applied on Sunday, but gives it a bonus of 50 places to the winner. This is the first time that this mixed electoral system, which was approved by the New Democracy in 2020, is being applied.

Therefore, Mitsotakis you just need to repeat the same result than last Sunday in order to get a comfortable absolute majority. The date of new elections could be June 25 or July 2, depending on the speed with which the leaders of the three parties with the largest number of votes are declared incapable of forming a majority government.

One of the keys to the election results was financial stabilization achieved during Mitsotakis’ tenure, which was accompanied by a reduction in the unemployment rate from 17% to 10% and growth prospects of 6%. However, his government also has its shadows, such as the country’s slide in the press freedom rankings or its scandals with wiretapping of opposition politicians and critical journalists.