Greeks began voting on Sunday in a snap election that opinion polls say will bring opposition conservatives to power, ending four years of leftist rule blamed for saddling the country with more debt and mismanaging crises.
TSIPRAS GOVERNMENT WAS CRITICIZED OF SEVERAL CRISIS
The election is largely a showdown of two contenders. Incumbent Alexis Tsipras of the Syriza party is on one side – a 44-year-old radical leftist who stormed to power in 2015 vowing to tear up the austerity rule book only to relent weeks later. On the other side of the fence is Kyriakos Mitsotakis, 51, of New Democracy. He is from a famous political dynasty – he hopes to follow the footsteps of his father as prime minister, while a sister of his was foreign minister.
Greece endured a debilitating financial crisis from 2010 which saw the country needing a cash lifeline from its European Union partners three times.
Tsipras was also roundly criticized for mismanagement of crises on his watch, and for brokering a deeply unpopular deal to end a dispute over the name of neighboring North Macedonia.
One hundred people died in a devastating fire which swept through a seaside village east of Athens last year; while Mitsotakis was quick to the scene to console survivors, Tsipras was out of the public eye for several days.
Greece wrapped up its last economic adjustment program in 2018, but remains under surveillance from lenders to ensure no future fiscal slippage. Though economic growth has returned to the country, unemployment is the euro zone’s highest at 18 percent.