GREECE: Local elections confirm ND's dominance
It will take next Sunday’s runoff in the regional and municipal contests to determine whether Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will achieve his ambitious goal of “13 and 3,” that is, winning all 13 regions and the three biggest cities: Athens, Thessaloniki and Piraeus.
What the first round showed is that the conservative New Democracy party’s domination of the political landscape, established in the successive national elections of last May and June, has hardly been dented, even as its second term in government was marked by natural disasters – wildfires and floods – where the state’s response was often roundly criticized. In seven of the 13 regions, the New Democracy-backed candidates were elected Sunday, although this number included socialist Stavros Arnaoutakis, whom New Democracy decided to back this time, and who romped to a fourth term as governor of Crete. As Kathimerini went to press Sunday night, an eighth candidate, Dimitris Ptochos in the Peloponnese, was a fraction of a percentage point short of the 43% threshold required for election in the first round.
More importantly, Sunday’s outright winners included Nikos Hardalias, the former conservative minister who won the country’s most populous region, Attica.
In the capital Athens, the incumbent mayor, Kostas Bakoyannis, came just short of outright victory, polling almost as much as he did in 2019.
Citizens confirmed their trust in New Democracy and its choices of candidates, said Mitsotakis, who notably referred to the outright victories of Hardalias and Apostolos Tzitzikostas in central Macedonia. “Next week, we will fight for our candidates present in the runoffs,” he added.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/1222000/local-elections-confirm-nds-dominance/
