Greece gears for general elections

By Ahmet Gencturk

ATHENS (AA) - Greece will host general elections on Sunday against the backdrop of rising living costs affecting millions of Greek households.

Some 36 parties and electoral coalitions are contesting for 300 seats in parliament.

Opinion polls indicate, however, only six parties would pass the 3% election threshold and consequently enter parliament.

Of them, the center-right New Democracy party (ND), led by incumbent Prime Minister Kryakos Mitsotakis, is seen as the favorite by many surveys.

The main opposition socialist-leaning SYRIZA-PS party, led by Alexis Tsipras follows the ND and is expected to be the second-largest party.

The social-democrat PASOK-KINAL party of Nikos Androulakis is expected to emerge as the third-largest party and the potential kingmaker if election results dictate a coalition government.

Populist, far-right Greek Solution party, led by Kyriakos Velopoulos, is expected to gain seats in parliament.

Socialist-leaning MeRA25 party, led by former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, is also expected to make inroads in parliament.

Also the Greek Communist Party (KKE), one of the oldest and strongest communist parties in Europe led by Dimitris Koutsoumpas, is expected to be represented in the country’s parliament in the next legislative term.

According to the country’s election law, electoral constituencies account for 288 of the 300 parliamentary seats. The remaining 12 seats are elected on a national level through party-list proportional representation and at least 151 seats are needed to form a government.

The latest figures by the Greek Interior Ministry reveal that the total number of voters in the country is over 9.8 million.

Furthermore, some 23,000 Greek expatriates living in 69 different countries have applied to cast votes for the elections.