IMAGE SOURCE, REUTERS / Image caption / PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis told reporters that the results would soon be clear
Greece election: Centre-right leads but no majority, exit poll suggests
By Paul Kirby
BBC News
Greece’s conservative New Democracy are set to win Sunday’s elections but are well short of the majority for an outright victory, an initial exit poll suggests.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s party is heading for 36-40% of the vote.
Predecessor Alexis Tsipras’s centre-left Syriza is well behind on 25-29%.
If neither party can form a coalition then Greek voters will return to vote in a second round in early July.
Greek experts have warned that the exit polls may prove unreliable because many voters refused to reveal which party they had backed.
If the results are confirmed, Mr Tsipras may look to establish a coalition with centre-left rival Pasok, which is set to win 9.5-12.5% of the vote, according to the joint exit poll by six polling agencies.
Mr Mitsotakis’s centre right has governed Greece for the past four years, and can boast that the country’s growth last year was close to 6%.
However, the election campaign was overshadowed by a rail tragedy in February that killed 57 people, many of them students.
Opposition parties highlighted the disaster as a symptom of a dysfunctional state that has been pared down to the bone after years of economic crisis and under-investment.
Four years ago winning 40% of the vote was enough to secure a majority in Greece’s 300-seat parliament.
Now it requires more than 45%, because the winning party is no longer entitled to a 50-seat bonus in the first round, making a second round more likely.
SOURCE:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65666261