Greek conservatives win parliamentary majority, declare mandate for change

Greece's conservative New Democracy party won a decisive victory in Sunday's national elections, securing party leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis a second four-year term as prime minister.

New Democracy won about 40.5% of the vote, more than twice the 18% earned by the main center-left opposition Syriza party. New Democracy's vote share was about the same as in a first round of voting in May, but under new rules for a second election, the party gained 50 bonus seats, giving it an estimated 158 seats in the 300-seat Parliament. Voter turnout dropped 8 percentage points from May, to 53%.

Voters "gave us a strong mandate to move faster on the course of the big changes our country needs," Mitsotakis said on television. He told celebrating supporters in Athens that New Democracy is now "the most powerful center-right party in Europe."

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Greeks appeared to overlook a series of scandals that surrounded Mitsotakis and his government in the past year, as well as a deadly Feb. 28 passenger train crash and a boat tragedy 11 days ago that left an estimated 500 migrants dead. Instead, voters cited the growing economy and lower unemployment as their main electoral issues.