Government rues ‘Pyrrhic victory’
Ruling New Democracy failed to pass the 33% bar that it had set as its target in Sunday’s European elections, registering a final percentage of 27.8%, with government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis referring to a “Pyrrhic victory.”
On the one hand, the center-right party maintained its large lead over the main opposition, leftist SYRIZA, while on the other it saw its might shrink by more than 13% from the 2023 national elections and 5.5% from the previous European elections, which was the benchmark it had set.
ND’s lead over SYRIZA exceeds 12 percentage points, but this cannot negate the conclusion that the party’s base, for the most part, sent a resounding message on Sunday, either by abstaining from the ballot box or by choosing parties to the right of ND.
At the same time, however, ND sees that the sum of SYRIZA and PASOK did not exceed the percentage it received, so “we do not have a reversal of the political scene,” but a strong message to the government from its own voters.
In absolute numbers, ND lost more than 900,000 voters compared to the 2019 European elections while nationalist Greek Solution gained almost 100,000 votes.
Moreover Niki and the Voice of Reason, who did not run in 2019, together got 250,000 votes. In total, these three parties climbed 350,000 votes, with the vast majority being former New Democracy voters.
At the same time, one message from the ballot box is that the constant depoliticization of politics through social media does not help to combat abstention, but instead may even strengthen it, as Sunday’s record abstention rate showed.
