Mitsotakis wins in landslide, to be sworn in at 1pm tomorrow

New Democracy has garnered a solid parliamentary majority according to exit polls that give Greece’s conservative party a landslide 12 percentage point lead over left-wing SYRIZA.

New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis is scheduled to be sworn in as Prime Minister by President Prokopis Pavlopoulos at the Presidential Mansion at 1pm tomorrow, 8 July.

The cabinet is scheduled to be sworn in on 9 July and the first cabinet meeting is scheduled for 10 July.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has called Mitsotakis to congratulate him and they will meet at the PM’s Maximos Mansion offices tomorrow immediately after the swearing in ceremony for a formal handover of power.

The exit polls gave New Democracy an eight-seat majority (158 seats in the 300-seat legislature).

The exit poll indicates that six parties will enter parliament – New Democracy, SYRIZA, Movement for Change, Greek Communist Party (KKE), Kyriakios Velopoulos’ Elliniki Lysi, and the party of former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis MeRa25.

Despite its stinging defeat, SYRIZA appears to have garnrered a around 30 percent of the vote, cementing a two-party hegemony in Greeek politics.

The exit poll indicates that neo-Nazi Golden Dawn with 2.96 percent of the vote is slightly short of the three percent threshold for entering parliament.

If Golden Dawn manages to enter Parliamentthen New Democacy is expected to receive 154-155 seats.
The exit poll gave New Democracy between 38 percent and 42 percent of the vote.

SYRIZA received between 26.5 percent and 30.5 percent in the exit poll.

That means that the greatest spread between ND and SYRIZA could exceed 15 percent of the vote, whereas if SYRIZA reaches the high projection and ND gets the low projection the spread would be as low as 7.5 percent.

The Movement for Change places third in the exit poll with between 6% and 8% of the vote.

The Greek Communist Party (KKE) garnered between 5% and 7% of the vote in the exit poll.

The exit poll indicates that the centre-left Movement for Change, with between 6% and 8% of the vote- has barely retained the percentage it obtained in the 26 May European election.

Movement for Change MEP Eva Kaili was the first party cadre to suggest even before the final results that a leadership challenge may be in the offing.