On Monday, Greece’s center-right leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis will be sworn in as prime minister after winning a second term with a record-high margin over the leftwing opposition.
Mitsotakis’ New Democracy party won 40.55% of the vote, more than double Syriza’s 17.84%. It was the greatest victory in 50 years and marginally increased ND’s 20-percentage-point lead from five weeks earlier.
Sunday’s result gives ND 158 members in the 300-member Parliament, while Syriza gets 48. The Stalinist Communist Party won 20 seats and PASOK 32.
Three far-right parties and one far-left party will divide the remaining 42 seats.
Turnout was 53%, down from 61% in May.
Mitsotakis, 55, promised economic prosperity and political stability as Greece emerges from a decade-long financial crisis.
He will be sworn in and announce his Cabinet on Monday when Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou gives him the power to form a cabinet.
His primary competitor, 48-year-old Alexis Tsipras, was Greece’s prime minister from 2015 to 2019.
Tsipras hasn’t resigned despite Syriza’s poor performance, and his party hasn’t called on him to. Tsipras said Syriza will focus on next year’s European parliamentary elections after Sunday’s loss.
Harvard-educated Mitsotakis hails from a notable Greek political family. His late father, Constantine Mitsotakis, was prime minister in the 1990s, his sister was foreign minister, and his nephew is the mayor of Athens. The younger Mitsotakis wants to make Greece a pro-business, financially responsible eurozone member.
The plan is working. New Democracy won all but one of the country’s 59 election areas, winning Socialist and leftwing strongholds, some for the first time.
Despite scandals that hit the Mitsotakis government late in its term, including wiretapping of senior politicians and journalists and a deadly Feb. 28 train crash that exposed public transport safety issues, voters appeared happy to return a prime minister who delivered economic growth and lowered unemployment.