Greece’s prime minister wins an election, but lacks a majority
GREECES RULING centre-right New Democracy (ND) party came first by an impressive and unexpected margin in an election held on May 21st; but it narrowly failed to secure an outright majority in parliament. It now looks likely that another election will be held, probably at the end of June, as the moderate socialist party, Pasok, has ruled out joining a coalition government under NDs leader, Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Mr Mitsotakis is not interested in forming a coalition at this stage either. With all the ballots now counted, ND took 40.8% of the vote, trouncing the radical left-wing Syriza party, which got only 20.1%, a result so bad that the future of its leader, former prime minister Alexis Tsipras, is now in question. Pasok trailed in third place on 11.5%. After the exclusion of small parties that failed to make the 3% threshold for winning seats in parliament, Mr Mitsotakis only narrowly failed to secure a majority in the 300-member parliament; ND has ended up with 145 seats. The result puts the prime minister in pole position to win a second term in June or July, under a revised proportional voting system that will give whichever party gets the most votes a sliding bonus of between 20 and 50 extra seats. A caretaker prime minister is expected to be appointed to run the country until that second election is held assuming, as seems probable, that no coalition is formed. Two small parties, the hard-right Hellenic Solution and the Communist Party of Greece, also won the minimum 3% of the vote needed to take seats in parliament. But Mera25, the radical left-wing party of Yanis Varoufakis, Syrizas former finance minister, fell below the threshold. Analysts have ruled out the possibility of a former premier, Alexis Tsipras, the leader of Syriza, forming a coalition government with Pasok if ND also falls short of a majority in July (though this looks highly unlikely if the figures on May 21st are even roughly replicated, once the bonus is added in). Its more likely if the gap is tight that New Democracy could persuade a handful of socialist personalities to defect and make up the numbers, one pollster said. Syrizas unexpectedly poor showing suggested it had failed to rally most of the 400,000 new voters aged between 16 and 21, contrary to pollsters forecasts. In recent elections the under-24 age group has mostly backed left-wing parties; with youth unemployment estimated to be higher than 25%, new voters are fearful about their job prospects. The young were especially angry about a disastrous train accident in February, blamed on negligence by rail employees and outdated signalling systems, in which more than 50 people, mostly students, died. Its sad we are still so far behind Europe on basic management practices, said Charalambos, an 18-year-old economics student. But the election made clear that NDs appeal to older voters is still strong. Conservative candidates campaigned on the governments solid record of restoring economic stability. They cited Syrizas chaotic early months in power in 2015, which took Greece to the brink of a disorderly exit from the euro followed by three years of harsh austerity. No longer under post-bailout surveillance by the EU, the economy is set to grow by 2.4% this year, above the projected euro-zone average. Yet inflation remains a worry. Though the rate has come down sharply, to only 3% year-on-year in April, earlier huge increases in food prices have curtailed household spending. Tourists rather than locals are filling restaurants around Athens at the start of the season. According to EU statistics, almost a third of Greeks are still at risk of poverty. Despite the economic rebound, some Greeks worry about a revival of what they call the traditional authoritarian attitudes of right-of-centre governments. Greece again came last among EU countries in this years global press-freedom index published by Reporters Without Borders. European officials are investigating a wiretapping scandal in which the state intelligence service spied on Greek politicians, journalists and businesspeople. The government has passed a law banning the use of spyware, but its own investigation of the scandal is moving very slowly. This article was updated on May 22nd