GREECE’S RIGHT-OF-CENTRE New Democracy (ND) party raced to an expected victory in a general election held on June 25th. With over 97% of the votes counted, it had captured 40.6% of the vote to win a second four-year term. The radical left-wing Syriza party trailed a far-distant second with 17.8%.

The conservatives, led by Kyriakos Mitsotakis—who was prime minister until last month, when he made way for an interim leader following an inconclusive election—were set to pick up 50 bonus seats under a new version of Greece’s proportional electoral system. That gives Mr Mitsotakis a projected overall majority of seven seats in the 300-member parliament. Eight parties are set to enter the new parliament.

The country’s second general election in just over a month saw the gap between ND and Syriza widen marginally, a sign of optimism about the chances for a sustained economic recovery against a backdrop of political stability. At the earlier poll, on May 21st, under a different system with no bonus seats, ND finished five seats short of an outright parliamentary majority. Mr Mitsotakis believes that his seven-seat majority this time will be enough to push through further reforms.

ND’s four years of governing competently, for the most part, and providing generous handouts, both during the covid-19 pandemic and last winter’s electricity price squeeze, held strong appeal for voters worried about joblessness and soaring food prices, according to pollsters.

Disasters like the shipwreck off western Greece earlier this month with the presumed loss of several hundred Pakistani and Syrian asylum-seekers, which has triggered claims that the Greek coastguard was negligent; or the train accident in February, in which more than 50 mostly-young Greeks died following a signaling error, appear to have been brushed aside. The latter led at the time to a sharp polling dip for ND, but this did not persist.

Yet the emergence of two newly registered far-right nationalist parties, the Spartans and Niki (Greek for “victory”) which comfortably cleared the 3% threshold for entering parliament, gave observers some pause for thought. Support for the Spartans jumped in the last few days of campaigning, according to polls, after a jailed former leader of Golden Dawn, an outlawed fascist party, tweeted that he would back them. A third right-wing group, the pro-Russian Hellenic Solution, will also return to parliament.

Pundits note that far-right splinter groups have a track record of undermining ND politicians, especially in the provinces. Together, the three hard-right parties were set to rack up more than 12% of the national vote. On the campaign trail in northern Greece, Mr Mitsotakis, the son of a centrist former premier, appealed to ND supporters not to break ranks. Not all were listening, it seems.

Syriza’s dismal performance at the polls reflects a wider malaise among progressive parties across western Europe that have been losing ground to conservatives and populists. After a third consecutive defeat, the political future of its leader, Alexis Tsipras, who served as prime minister from 2015-19, looks in grave doubt.

Once a poster-child for Europe’s radical left, Mr Tsipras pushed Greece to the brink of leaving the euro, then reversed course and carried out harsh but effective measures imposed by Brussels, preparing the way for Mr Mitsotakis to steer Greece back to normality. But Mr Tsipras has lost much of the support he previously enjoyed, for example from older Greeks, after ND cut delays in awarding pensions, while a majority of new voters—traditionally fertile ground for the leftists—pragmatically backed the conservative choice. The veteran Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok), hoping to exploit Syriza’s travails and become the official opposition, made only modest gains, capturing 11.9%, still well behind even the battered Syriza.

Mr Mitsotakis is expected to appoint his new cabinet early this week. Those close to him promise “a tsunami” of Greek and foreign investment in his second term to help Greece catch up with its central European EU partners. But there are warning signs, too: several economists noted last week that Athens is already in the grip of a property bubble. Prices have almost reached levels last seen in 2008 before the global financial crash. The new government will need to tread cautiously. ■