Mitsotakis may win Greek election in landslide victory
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The Greek premier called for a second round after garnering an absolute parliamentary majority last month.
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Greece's Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis stands outside Maximos Mansion in Athens on May 6, 2022. (AP)
Conservative leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis is on track to win Greece's national elections with a commanding majority on Sunday, according to preliminary results, securing a second straight term.
Polling stations opened for the second round at 7:00 am local time.
Mitsotakis' New Democracy party received more than 40% of the vote, far ahead of the socialist Syriza party led by former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, which received less than 18%, according to figures from 35% of the ballots.
The conservatives' advantage would be the biggest in over 50 years, as voters thanked them for bringing Greece back to economic health following a severe financial crisis.
Mitsotakis had won the previous election, leaving former prime minister Alexis Tsipras in the dust, more than 20% behind, despite massive popular demonstrations taking place against the Greek official due to his economic policies and pro-Western tendencies.
Conservatives received their highest performance since 2007, with voters praising the party for restoring economic stability to a country that was previously seen as an EU laggard.
The Greek premier called for a second round so as to be able to garner an absolute parliamentary majority after falling five seats short, seeking to form a single-party government.
Mitsotakis, who comes from one of Greece's most powerful political dynasties, said the country was "voting for a second time in a few weeks to get a stable and effective government" when he voted earlier on Sunday.
His rule had been marred by a wiretapping scandal, as well as a February train catastrophe that killed 57 people.
The government first blamed the catastrophe, Greece's worst-ever train disaster, on human error, despite the fact that the country's infamously weak rail network had been underinvested for years.
Thousands of Communist Party of Greece (KKE) supporters flooded onto the streets of Athens ahead of the May 21 parliamentary elections in Greece. KKE General Secretary Dimitris Koutsoumbas emphasized the need to fight against the country's "transformation into a US-NATO base." pic.twitter.com/lImBkvEIcz
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