Greece is racing ahead, but Mitsotakis sees enemies emerging on the right

 No snap elections in Greece: the vote will take place next spring. This was confirmed on Sunday by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, leader of Néa Dimokratía (New Democracy – Nd). After all, time is needed to make up the ground lost following the all-or-nothing gamble of 2023. The Prime Minister’s calculations are in fact based on the Greek electoral law: 25 per cent of the vote triggers a base bonus of 20 seats, which increases by one seat for every half a percentage point, up to a maximum of 50 seats at 40 per cent. This means that, as happened in 2023 when Nd secured 40.5 per cent of the vote (158 seats out of 300), Mitsotakis can aim to govern alone. But he currently stands at 30 per cent in the polls.

Thus, as early as last Saturday, Mitsotakis kicked off his election campaign, announcing a pre-budget package worth €3.5 billion over four years, comprising tax breaks for private individuals and pay rises for pensioners and employees. An election gift made possible by fiscal discipline: having ended 2025 with a surplus of 1.7 per cent, Greece is set to remain in surplus this year too, according to the IMF, with GDP growth of 2 per cent. This result is reflected in the debt-to-GDP ratio, which is expected to fall from 145.7 per cent in 2025 to 136.9 per cent in 2026 (below Italy’s 138.4 per cent), and which the Prime Minister has promised to bring below 110 per cent by 2030.

But despite the excellent economic results, Mitsotakis, according to current polls, cannot govern alone. He has certainly been affected by the massive corruption scandal involving the government agency Opekepe and EU agricultural funds, as well as the controversy over responsibility for the Tempi rail disaster in 2023, which claimed 57 lives. He needs an ally. He cannot turn to the left: Alexis Tsipras, the former radical-left prime minister from 2015 to 2019, returned to the limelight in May with ELAS, which is second in the polls at around 15–17 per cent, declaring himself the main opposition to New Democracy. The socialists of PASOK, at around 11–13 per cent, have ruled out any coalition with Mitsotakis. The shift is to the right, of course. However, there is personal animosity toward the Prime Minister: neither the nationalist party Greek Solution, at around 9 per cent, nor Voice of Reason (3 per cent) led by Afroditi Latinopoulou – a former ND member who calls Mitsotakis ‘the most woke Prime Minister of all time’ – will support him. Instead, they might back ND, but with a different leader.

Into this space, Antonis Samaras, former leader of New Democracy (Nd) and Prime Minister from 2012 to 2015, is set to step. According to the Greek daily To Vima, he is reportedly drawing up the lists for a new political party to be launched in September, recruiting candidates from New Democracy’s local branches. Samaras was expelled from New Democracy in 2024 for calling for the foreign minister’s resignation over talks with Turkey – which he regards as a national capitulation – and he has now returned to hammering home that very point. He, too, accuses Mitsotakis of having caved in to the ‘woke’ agenda, starting with the legalisation of same-sex marriage. Hence the slogan: ND without Mitsotakis, perhaps with Samaras. The paradox is that Samaras, aged 75, has already brought down a Mitsotakis government: it was 1993, when Konstantinos Mitsotakis – the current prime minister’s father – was in power, and Samaras’s defection, along with MPs close to him, cost him his majority. The current Prime Minister remembers this too, having said of Samaras: “He has far too much experience of harming New Democracy. I hope he doesn’t use it.”