Greece

Greeks head to polls again amid migrant shipwreck crisis

Greeks went to the polls on Sunday for the second time in little over a month to elect a new parliament, with voters expected to give ex-PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis' conservatives a second term in office.
A man casts his ballot at a polling station, during the general election, in Athens, Greece, June 25, 2023.
A man casts his ballot at a polling station, during the general election, in Athens, Greece, June 25, 2023. REUTERS/Louiza Vradi
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ATHENS (Reuters) -Greeks went to the polls on Sunday for the second time in little over a month to elect a new parliament, with voters expected to give former Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis' conservatives a second term in office.

Sunday's election is being held in the shadow of a migrant shipwreck on June 14 in which hundreds of people are feared to have perished off southern Greece. One of the worst such disasters in years, it has shown the parties' divisions over migration.

Mitsotakis' New Democracy party won an election on May 21, 20 points clear of the leftist Syriza party that ruled Greece from 2015 to 2019.

But it fell just short of the outright majority needed to rule without forming a coalition, prompting the second vote under different rules that make it easier for the winning party to secure a majority in the 300-seat parliament.

Opinion polls in recent days have shown New Democracy with more than 40% percent of the vote, with Syriza headed by Alexis Tsipras trailing at about 20%.

A Greek Orthodox priest casts his ballot at a polling station, during the general election, in Athens, Greece, June 25, 2023.
A Greek Orthodox priest casts his ballot at a polling station, during the general election, in Athens, Greece, June 25, 2023. REUTERS/Louiza Vradi

Polling stations opened at 7 a.m. (0400 GMT) across Greece and will close 12 hours later, with results expected by around 1700 GMT.

The shipwreck disaster sidelined other issues in the run-up to the election, including a cost of living crisis, and a deadly rail crash in February that exposed shortcomings on that public transport system.

A person casts a ballot at a polling station, during the general election, in Athens, Greece, June 25, 2023.
A person casts a ballot at a polling station, during the general election, in Athens, Greece, June 25, 2023. REUTERS/Louiza Vradi

Rescuers found 104 survivors but up to 750 people were thought to have been packed on the ramshackle vessel that had sailed from Libya and was heading to Italy. The boat had been shadowed by the Greek coast guard before it sank: the coast guard has said that the occupants refused all offers of help.

Mitsotakis, whose administration has taken a hard stance on migration, said "wretched traffickers" were to blame for the disaster and praised the coast guard for rescuing people.

People cast their votes at a polling station, during the general election, in Athens, Greece, June 25, 2023.
People cast their votes at a polling station, during the general election, in Athens, Greece, June 25, 2023. REUTERS/Louiza Vradi

Tsipras has questioned why the coast guard did not intervene earlier. Under the previous Syriza administration, more than one million refugees and migrants reached Greek islands as they tried to come to Europe in 2015 and 2016.

(Reporting by Michele Kambas; Editing by Frances Kerry)

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