Mitsotakis takes over as Greece’s PM with radical change of style
After steering New Democracy to landslide win, former banker says ‘hard work begins today’
Greece’s outgoing prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, has handed over power to Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a former banker who navigated the centre-right New Democracy party to landslide victory in Sunday’s snap general elections.
In a changing of the guard that was as subdued as it was swift, Mitsotakis assumed office after he was officially sworn in by the Orthodox Christian country’s spiritual leader, Archbishop Ieronymos.
Hours later a new government was announced: of its 51 members, 21 were untested politicians, some from centre-left backgrounds, some technocrats, some from the world of business who had come on board “to help the country turn a new page”.
From the outset there was no escaping the change in style. In a radical departure from his leftwing predecessor, a self-declared atheist only ever seen in open-neck shirts, Mitsotakis wore a suit and tie as he took the oath on the Bible, watched by his wife and three children.
“We have been given a strong mandate to change Greece,” said the 51-year-old in his first statement as prime minister after his investiture. “The hard work begins today. I have absolute confidence in our abilities to rise to the occasion.”
The change not only marked conservatives’ return to power but also the start of a new era: after a drama-filled decade of deep recession, multiple international bailouts and unprecedented poverty and protest, debt-stricken Greece had come full circle electing its first post-bailout government.
In a nation worn out by years of EU-mandated austerity – the price of remaining in the eurozone – Mitsotakis’s promise of re-energising the economy has resonated.
His pledge to reduce taxes and create jobs in a county still grappling with record unemployment – at 18% the highest in the EU – particularly appealed to the middle-class hard hit by tax rates imposed by the Tsipras government to meet fiscal targets.
“Psychologically it feels like there has been a change. The economy has been at a standstill and foreign investors like this guy,” said Stelios Kapezos, the owner of a café frequented by politicians close to the parliament. “But he’s not going to have long to prove himself. He said he would bring down VAT and other taxes and we want to see that. Tsipras said so many things and never delivered. We need to start seeing some positive change soon.”
With all votes counted on Monday, New Democracy was shown to have captured 39.8% and 158 seats, more than doubling its presence in the 300-seat parliament. Tsipras’s Syriza party won 31.5%.
Furnished with an absolute majority, Mitsotakis, the son of a former conservative prime minister, was able to form a government unfettered.
Insiders say the new Harvard-educated leader’s overarching aim will be to unify an often fractious nation behind a reform plan that will spur economic growth. “I don’t think there has been a prime minister who has been more prepared for this job,” said one. “He knows what he is up against, he has a plan and he is going to act on it.”
The new cabinet will be sworn in on Tuesday. Mitsotakis may have a fiery start: tensions with Turkey have risen dangerously in the eastern Mediterranean over conflicting claims to energy reserves off the island of Cyprus. In a move that has alarmed the EU, Ankara announced it would be sending a second drilling ship to begin the search for hydrocarbons off the island on Tuesday.
Congratulatory messages poured in for a politician viewed internationally as a reformist whom supporters say is the man to modernise Greece. Despite Tsipras’s promises of relief measures including a bonus for pensioners and wage increases, Mitsotakis resolutely refused to make pre-election promises he said he would be unable to keep – even if his party’s pledge to reduce VAT and corporate and property taxes is likely to engender disapproval among foreign creditors who have continued to monitor Greece since it exited its third economic adjustment programme last August.
In a previous guise the politician was minister of administrative reform, making changes to the public sector that while controversial were widely respected by foreign lenders.
Although New Democracy has traditionally espoused socially conservative views, as one of Europe’s most nationalist rightwing parties, Mitsotakis has been at pains to move it to the centre. Privately, he describes himself as a progressive with liberal economic views.
The party’s victory has been seen as a personal vindication: as a modernising centrist the ex-financier had been held in suspicion by leading figures in New Democracy when he assumed its helm in January 2016.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/08/kyriakos-mitsotakis-takes-over-greece-pm-new-democracy