Kyriakos Mitsotakis was sworn in for a second time period as Greece’s prime minister Monday after voters handed the conservatives a landslide victory a day earlier.
Crediting Mitsotakis and his New Democracy occasion for bringing financial stability to the erstwhile EU debt laggard, voters gave the conservatives their widest profitable margin in nearly 50 years Sunday.
“No adversary, absolute dominance of Mitsotakis,” headlined centrist newspaper Ta Nea.
Hailing the “strong mandate,” Mitsotakis mentioned that “major reforms will proceed rapidly,” including that he had “ambitious” targets for his subsequent 4 years in energy that might “transform” Greece.
Among his pledges is pouring cash into the nation’s public well being system – which was stretched to its limits by the COVID-19 pandemic – and bettering railway security after the deaths of 57 folks in a February practice collision that was Greece’s worst rail catastrophe.
Congratulations poured in from world leaders swiftly after Mitsotakis’s victory.
“I look forward to continuing our close cooperation on shared priorities to foster prosperity and regional security,” mentioned U.S. President Joe Biden in a press release.
French President Emmanuel Macron additionally promised cooperation in the direction of “a stronger and more sovereign Europe,” whereas Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani known as Mitsotakis’s reelection “a sign of political stability that is good for the whole Europe.”
The 55-year-old former McKinsey marketing consultant and Harvard graduate, who steered the EU nation from the pandemic again to 2 consecutive years of robust progress, had already scored a convincing win in an election in May.
But having fallen brief by 5 seats within the parliament of with the ability to type a single-party authorities, he refused to attempt to type a coalition, in impact forcing 9.8 million Greek voters again to the poll bins.
The gamble paid off, along with his New Democracy occasion consolidating its win from the May 21 vote, whereas its nearest rival, the left-wing Syriza occasion of former premier Alexis Tsipras, noticed a lack of tens of 1000’s of voters in comparison with only a month in the past.
Tsipras, acknowledging a “serious political defeat,” mentioned he was leaving his political destiny to the “judgment” of Syriza members.
For many Greeks, Tsipras is the prime minister who almost crashed Greece out of the euro and who reneged on a vow of abolishing austerity to signal the nation on to extra painful bailout phrases.
To the dismay of centrists, Sunday’s robust swing to the correct was additionally accompanied by the return of the far proper into parliament.
“Fascists will enter parliament … this constitutes a completely toxic environment,” senior Syriza chief Costas Zachariadis informed Skai TV.
New cupboard
Holding 158 seats within the 300-seat parliament, Mitsotakis will formally obtain the mandate to type a authorities Monday from Greece’s head of state, President Katerina Sakellaropoulou.
The prime minister-elect is then anticipated to unveil his cupboard within the coming days, although names have been already circulating even earlier than the final votes have been counted.
Mitsotakis’s trusted troubleshooter George Gerapetritis is being tipped as international minister.
A professor of constitutional regulation, Gerapetritis was enlisted in March to take care of the practice tragedy, in addition to a wiretapping scandal that implicated the prime minister’s workplace final 12 months.
The former international minister, Nikos Dendias, a political reasonable, is anticipated to maneuver to the Defense Ministry.
As quickly as Thursday, Mitsotakis is because of meet with EU counterparts at a summit in Brussels.
‘Visible’ risk
Mitsotakis, who first grew to become prime minister in 2019, has not solely vowed to make financial stability a function of his new time period.
He had additionally championed a troublesome anti-immigration line, interesting to the conservative base in an electoral marketing campaign through which the latest lethal sinking of an overcrowded trawler did not garner a point out.
Instead, three small nationalist events with anti-migration insurance policies garnered between them almost 13% of the vote.
One of them, Spartiates (Spartans), is endorsed by the jailed former spokesman of the neo-Nazi occasion Golden Dawn and can make an entrance into parliament after crossing the three% threshold.
Tsipras mentioned the strongest exhibiting of Greek hard-right events in many years was a “visible” risk to democracy.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
