Conservatives beat Tsipras in Greek vote: exit polls

Greece’s conservative New Democracy party has defeated Greek leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in yesterday’s general election, exit polls showed. A combined survey by Greece’s main TV stations showed New Democracy leading Tsipras’s Syriza party by an average of 40 per cent to 28.5pc.

If these results are confirmed, New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a 51-year-old Harvard graduate and former McKinsey consultant, will have a majority of up to 167 lawmakers in the 300-seat parliament. Tsipras’s party will have up to 82 seats, the polls showed. The final number will depend on how smaller parties fare.

They need at least 3.0pc of the vote to enter parliament. New arrivals fighting to secure representation are Greek Solution, a nationalist party formed by TV salesman Kyriakos Velopoulos, and MeRA25, an anti-austerity party formed by maverick economist and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. According to the exit polls, Varoufakis’s party could elect up to 14 lawmakers. Greek Solution could end up with 13 deputies, as many as neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn, whose ratings have sharply dropped in the midst of a criminal trial with several of its top members facing charges.

New Democracy was last in power in 2014, in coalition with the Greek socialists. Mitsotakis is a scion of one of Greece’s top political families. He is the son of former prime minister Constantine Mitsotakis, one of the country’s longest-serving parliamentarians. His sister is former minister Dora Bakoyannis, Athens’s first female mayor. And new Athens mayor Costas Bakoyannis, elected in May, is his nephew.

Sunday’s election is Greece’s third in as many months, and the first held in midsummer since 1928. In May, New Democracy beat Syriza by nearly 9.5 points in European parliament elections. A week later, it completed a nearsweep of Greek regions in local elections.

Battle for the premiership

Some members of a small farleft party protested outside the polling station where Mitsotakis voted, but their shouts were drowned out by New Democracy supporters calling their leader the new prime minister. “I hope that from tomorrow we will be able to breathe with relief. To take a deep breath. If Mitsotakis does what he promises,” Athinodoros, a 48-year-old self-employed worker voting in Athens said.

Tsipras called the snap election in June after losing both European and local elections to Mitsotakis’ New Democracy in the space of two weeks. He has accused Mitsotakis -- who was part of a 2012-2014 crisis government -- of “disastrous” mismanagement that brought hundreds of thousands of job losses and business failures. Mitsotakis, who took over New Democracy three years ago, is a 51-year-old Harvard graduate and former McKinsey consultant.

He has pledged to create “better” jobs through growth, foreign investment and tax cuts and to “steamroll” obstacles to business. Tsipras, on the other hand, touts his party’s track record in reducing unemployment and raising the minimum wage for the first time since 2012. His government also rolled out a batch of last-minute tax cuts in May. But Tsipras has been widely criticised for campaigning as an anti-austerity crusader before eventually accepting a third EU bailout.

According to the latest polls, conducted for the Ant1 tv channel, New Democracy is expected to gain between 151 to 165 seats in the 300-seat parliament. Syriza meanwhile is forecast to fall from 144 seats to between 70 and 82. The biggest party picks the premier.

Budding newcomers

The vote is Greece’s third poll in as many months, and the country’s first mid-summer general election since 1928 is unlikely to attract strong participation. In May, fewer than 59 per cent of registered voters cast ballots for European Parliament polls and the first round of local and regional elections.

Two new smaller parties are vying to enter parliament for the first time, hoping to reach the three percent threshold that would allow them a seat. The MeRA25 anti-austerity party has been set up by Tsipras’s former maverick finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, while Greek Solution, is a nationalist, pro-Russia party formed by former journalist and TV salesman Kyriakos Velopoulos.