Why Greece Is Voting Again and What It Means for Economic Recovery

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis achieved a surprise landslide win in Greece’s May 21 election, but it wasn’t enough to secure his conservative party another majority in parliament. So the country will vote again on June 25 — this time under a new electoral system that makes it easier for the first-place finisher to form a single-party government. Markets were encouraged by expectations that a strong government will help Greek bonds to regain the investment-grade status that they lost during Europe’s sovereign debt crisis more than a decade ago. Bad blood among the leading candidates remains, however, which doesn’t bode well for any attempt to form a coalition if needed. And public anger, including over the deadliest train crash in Greek history, may see some voters continue to drift to smaller parties.

Mitsotakis’ center-right New Democracy party won 40.8%, almost twice the 20.7% of former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s leftist Syriza party, and the largest margin of victory of any party since 1974. New Democracy actually increased its share of the overall vote from the 2019 election, which brought Mitsotakis to power. Support for Syriza slumped from its previous score of 31.5%. Yet even though New Democracy came first in all but one of 59 electoral districts, Mitsotakis still fell five seats short of a majority in the 300-seat parliament given the proportional representation system that was introduced by Tsipras when he was premier. A strong advocate of single-party governments, Mitsotakis immediately said the result gave him a strong mandate to rule alone and that he preferred to hold a second ballot — permissible under Greek law — rather than attempt to craft a coalition. In any case, other party leaders said that they couldn’t work with Mitsotakis and the numbers didn’t add up for them to even try to pursue a coalition government.