Kyriakos Mitsotakis to become seventh New Democracy prime minister since the end of Greek military dictatorship in 1974 <a target="_blank">(Photo: epp.org)</a>
Kyriakos Mitsotakis to become seventh New Democracy prime minister since the end of Greek military dictatorship in 1974 (Photo: epp.org)

Economy

Greek election: Tsipras out, Mitsotakis in

By Andrew Rettman,
Brussels
,

Greece has ended its four-year romance with the far left in a victory for the centre-right New Democracy party in Sunday’s (7 July) elections.

Its leader, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a 51-year old ex-banker from a political dynasty, won some 40 percent of the vote, gaining him more than 150 seats out of 300 in parliament under a bonus-seat system.

The Greek president will invite him to govern on Monday and his cabinet will be sworn in on Tuesday.

Mitsotakis won by promising to cut taxes, privatise services, and create jobs, which his left-wing rivals had failed to do.

He travelled the four corners of Greece holding town-hall debates over the past two years.

He poached far-right votes by railing against migrants.

He also poached them by attacking Greece’s recent name deal with North Macedonia, which had angered nationalists by downplaying what they saw as irredentist claims to a Greek region of the same name.

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Kyriakos Mitsotakis to become seventh New Democracy prime minister since the end of Greek military dictatorship in 1974 (Photo: epp.org)

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Author Bio

Andrew Rettman Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.