(ANSA-AFP) - ATHENS, MAY 17 - Greeks will vote on Sunday in
the most unpredictable national polls in a decade with an
inconclusive result likely to lead to the election needing to be
re-run. Outgoing conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis
holds a clear lead of around 6 percent over his nearest rival,
leftist former premier Alexis Tsipras. But under the election's
proportional representation rules, no party is expected to win
by a margin large enough to secure an outright majority in the
300-seat parliament. A follow-up election by early July will
likely be necessary, and will use a new system that would grant
the winner bonus seats in parliament. Mitsotakis, campaigning on
four years of tax cuts, tourism revival and steady growth, has
warned denying his New Democracy party a strong mandate would
lead to "paralysis" at a time of international uncertainty.
"Currently there is no other credible proposal except a
self-reliant New Democracy (government)," the 55-year-old told
the Kathimerini daily last week. Tsipras and his Syriza party
promise to restore faith in a country shaken by a scandal over
wiretapping by the security services and Greece's worst-ever
rail disaster that claimed 57 lives in February. In 2015 he led
a high-stakes negotiation with the European Union that nearly
crashed Greece out of the euro. (ANSA-AFP).
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