Greece’s ruling New Democracy party suffered a setback in Sunday’s runoff elections for regional governors and mayors, losing the country’s two largest cities and five of the six regional contests. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had explicitly said that his goal was to win all 13 regions plus the cities of Athens, Thessaloniki and Piraeus, “13 plus 3,” as he said.
The results of the first round, last Sunday, appeared to consolidate New Democracy’s political dominance, already expressed in the double national election, last May and June. Its endorsed candidates won all seven regions whose result was decided in the first round, as well as Piraeus. This included two cases, Piraeus and the region of Greece, where New Democracy decided to hitch itself on the bandwagon of the incumbents, whom it had opposed in the previous local elections in 2019. But on Sunday, voters, at least those that bothered to turn out, inflicted a reality check on New Democracy’s triumphalism.
“It was not an especially good night for New Democracy,” Mitsotakis acknowledged Sunday night. But he went on to say that this had become apparent in the October 8 first round, a contrast to his optimistic, if not triumphalist, statements back then.
The result that probably stung the most was in the capital Athens, where a socialist-backed academic and political neophyte, Haris Doukas, beat incumbent Kostas Bakoyannis, with nearly 56 per cent of the vote. That was a massive upset, considering that Bakoyannis had scored over 41 per cent in the first round, a little short of the 43 per cent threshold required for an outright victory, to Doukas’ 14 per cent. Bakoyannis is Mitsotakis’ nephew; his mother, Dora Bakoyannis, a New Democracy lawmaker and former minister, was mayor of Athens from 2003 to 2007.
Sunday’s turnout in Athens was even lower than in the first round: just 26.7 per cent of eligible voters showed up, compared to last Sunday’s 32.3 per cent. Turnout around the country was 40.7 per cent for the 84 municipal contests and 35.1 per cent for the six regionals. In the first round of October 8, turnout in both types of contests had been 52.5 per cent.
Significant shift in the political landscape, with the ruling New Democracy party losing ground
1. Election Results in Thessaly (Percentage of Votes)
• Kostas Agorastos (New Democracy): 40%
• Dimitris Kouretas (PASOK and Syriza): 60%
2. Election Results in Thessaloniki (Percentage of Votes)
• Stelios Angeloudis (Socialist,
unofficial candidate): 67%
• Konstantinos Zervas
(Incumbent, New Democracy): 33%
