NIKE

Greek Conservatives Score Landslide Re-Election Victory

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the leader of the center-right New Democracy party, will serve a second four-year term as prime minister.

Greece’s Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his center-right New Democracy party scored a landslide victory in Sunday’s general election, securing 158 seats in the country’s 300-seat parliament and granting him a second four-year term as prime minister. The “safe majority,” as Mitsotakis put it in his first address following the election, would allow him to “transform Greece at a dynamic pace of development” with “major reforms.” He added, “In a resounding and mature way, they put a definitive end to a traumatic cycle of toxicity that had held the country back and divided society.” Sunday’s election was the second held in as many months; while the May election handed a victory to New Democracy, the party fell short of the votes needed to establish an absolute majority in Parliament. Rather than seek to form a coalition government, Mitsotakis decided to seek a stronger majority with a second election, according to the Associated Press. New Democracy collected roughly 40.5 percent of the vote on Sunday, while its main rival, the left-wing Syriza party, trailed behind at just 17.8 percent and 47 seats.