Campaign for Greek election begins with dissolved Parliament

The campaign for Greece’s May 21 national election officially opened on April 22 with the dissolution of the Parliament that was elected in July 2019.

The campaign for Greece’s May 21 national election officially opened on April 22 with the dissolution of the Parliament that was elected in July 2019.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met with President Katerina Sakellaropoulou to propose the dissolution and she accepted it, as obliged by the Constitution of Greece. Mr. Mitsotakis said that with less than three months before lawmakers' four-year terms were due to end, next month's voting does not count as an early election.

Shortly after his meeting with the President, Mr. Mitsotakis gave a televised address in which he defended his government's record. He listed its achievements as well as the challenges ahead, and sought to make the case for a stable government going forward.

However, the Prime Minister's centre-right New Democracy will be hard-pressed to continue leading Greece in another single-party government. Next month's legislative election will be the country's first under a proportional representation system, and polls show that none of the leading parties is expected to receive a majority of votes.

The prospects of New Democracy, the centre-left Syriza party or the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, or PASOK, teaming up in some combination to form a coalition government also is considered extremely unlikely by politicians and pundits.

In that event, another election would be held in early July. Another revision to election laws would give the winner of that vote a 30-seat bonus. Yet even the second election may not produce a majority in the 300-member Greek parliament.