Today’s news / Greece

Greece

By 6:30 a.m. Monday morning, 99.57 percent of the votes had been counted in the Greek general election and showed New Democracy mustering 40.79 percent of the vote, according to a count on the Greek interior ministry’s website. However, it does not appear that the governing Conservative party can form a government on its own. This means that the elections are expected to go to a second round. The second largest party, with 20.07 percent of the vote, is the leftist Syriza Party, which led the country between 2015 and 2019. Greece’s 55-year-old prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, said in a speech on election night that there has been a “political earthquake” in Greece. And that the Greeks have given him a mandate to form a strong government. From Monday, the three main parties New Democracy, Syriza and Socialist Pasok have three days to form a government. If they do not succeed, another election will take place in a month’s time. /ritzau/