2023-06-23 03:12:45
Two days before the legislative elections in Greece, the former right-wing Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his main left-wing rival, Alexis Tsipras, ended their second campaign in five weeks on Friday by addressing their troops one last time.
The leader of the conservatives of New Democracy (ND) must speak in the evening on the esplanade of Syntagma, below Parliament, to convince the voters to grant him the absolute majority he covets to form “a strong and stable government.
At the same time, Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras will hold a final rally in Thessaloniki, the country’s second city (north).
Saturday, on the eve of the second ballot following that of May 21, no political demonstration or publication of opinion polls is authorized.
“On Sunday evening, the country will have a stable government with a strong New Democracy at its head,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis has already assured at a previous meeting.
Former Greek Prime Minister and Syriza party leader Alexis Tsipras gestures following delivering a speech at a campaign rally in Athens, June 22, 2023
AFP
Earlier this week, he also called on voters to give him even more votes than on May 21 so that “we can change the country”.
Large victory
Opposite, the pugnacious Alexis Tsipras urged each Syriza sympathizer “despite disagreements and reservations, to contribute with their vote (…) to put a barrier to an unsustainable right-wing government”.
Big favorite in the polls, Kyriakos Mitsotakis won a big victory on May 21 by winning 40.8% of the vote. The double of the former Prime Minister of the radical left, Alexis Tsipras (2015-2019).
But this result had ensured him only 146 of the 300 seats of deputies. But he needed 151 to be able to form a government without having to form an alliance.
Coming from a large family of political leaders, the 55-year-old leader had then ruled out forming a coalition and called for new elections.
The latest polls give him this time between 40% and 45% of the voting intentions.
For Syriza, which suffered a stinging setback on May 21 with 20.07% of the vote, a drop of 11.5 points compared to 2019, the decline might be further accentuated.
Forecasts place it at between 16.8% and 20%, followed by the Pasok-Kinal Socialists (11% to 12%).
To obtain an absolute majority, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, replaced by an interim Prime Minister pending Sunday’s elections, is betting on a different voting system which this time grants the winning party a bonus of up to 50 seats.
In the last days of this brief campaign, Kyriakos Mitsotakis sought to remobilize the crowds who, out of weariness, might be tempted not to go to the polling stations.
Another possible concern for the conservative camp: the crumbling of votes on the far right where two to three small parties might send deputies to sit by exceeding the 3% threshold.
However, the number of parties represented in parliament will arithmetically have repercussions on the number of seats that the ND will obtain.
Spartans
Supporters of Greece’s far-right Niki (Victory) Party leader Dimitrios Natsios during a candidate’s rally in Piraeus ahead of the Greek parliamentary elections on June 22, 2023
AFP
Among these small formations likely to complicate the task of Kyriakos Mitsotakis figure “the Spartans”, supported by a former senior official of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, Ilias Kassidiaris, who is currently serving a heavy prison sentence.
The former Golden Dawn spokesperson had been barred from contesting the elections by the Supreme Court but continued to engage in political activities from his cell.
The electoral campaign was also overshadowed by the sinking, on June 14, of a migrant boat off Pylos in the Peloponnese, one of the worst migratory dramas in the Mediterranean.
The exact circumstances of the sinking of a trawler with up to 750 people on board, according to some survivors, have raised many questions.
The Greek coastguards, in particular, have been singled out for being slow to intervene when the boat was dilapidated and overloaded.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who has pursued a controversial migration policy for the past four years marked by accusations, still denied, of refoulements to Turkey, has largely blamed the tragedy on the smugglers whom he described as “scum”.
He also assured that he had the support of the majority of the population to pursue a “fair but strict” asylum policy.
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