If the government’s concern over the first round of local elections was that “election fatigue” might have set in after the national elections in June, it appears that in the second round the ruling party fell victim to “ND fatigue”. While Nea Dimokratia dominated the first round of the Regional elections, with ND-supported candidates winning the Governorship of 6 Regions (7 if one includes Stavros Arnautakis in Crete), it was unable to improve greatly on this performance in the second round, despite having several candidates in a leading position.
The second round in the Regions
Of the remaining six Regions only the Peloponnese was won by the ND’s candidate. In three others – Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, North Aegean, and Thessaly – the ND candidate, while leading in the first round (and in two cases being the incumbent), failed to win in the second round. In the Ionian Islands and Western Macedonia, the ND candidates, having come 2nd in the first round, failed to improve on their position.
Altogether, of the 13 Regions, 7 of the winning candidates were ND party members with full government support, one (in Crete) a PASOK member standing as an Independent with support from PASOK and ND, three were ND party members standing as Independents without government support, while one was standing as an Independent with support from SYRIZA and PASOK, and one as an Independent with no party support. Thus although ND’s dominance was not what had been hoped, it still remained the only party with an effective presence in the Regional elections.
The second round in the municipalities
In the three main municipalities which had been targeted by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the situation was worse, with the government failing to get its favoured candidate elected in all three cases. In Athens, the incumbent mayor Kostas Bakogiannis had led with 41.35% in the first round against PASOK’s Charis Doukas with 14.19%. However in the second round the roles were reversed with Doukas achieving 55.69% against Bakogiannis’s 44.04%. In Thessaloniki, the independent Stylianos Angeloudis won against the ND-backed incumbent Konstantinos Zervas by 67.33% to 32.67%, despite the latter having led by a small percentage in the first round. While in Patras, KKE’s Konstantinos Pelletidis maintained his position as the incumbent with 56.69%.
The official results do not state party affiliations for most of the elected mayors, no doubt reflecting the fact that the fronts mounted by the municipal candidates are not necessarily selected on party lines. Out of the 333 municipalities listed in the official results, 25 of the winning candidates are identified as Nea Dimokratia, 17 PASOK, 17 Independent, 2 KKE and 1 SYRIZA.
Reasons for the result
Overall, as the Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis observed, “It certainly wasn’t a particularly good night for ND”. He suggested that, having realised the bulk of its support in the first round, ND had difficulty in securing further wins which would have taken it above the 41% it achieved in the national elections. He also noted that the turnout in both rounds had been particularly low, a fact which should be of concern to all, but said that a government’s feet need to be on the ground and it would “take note of the political messages at any moment, and fight with all its strength to improve the daily life of Greek citizens”.
Such upsets can happen when elections go to a second round, where the participation of first-round voters is uncertain and the result depends on the distribution of votes which previously went to eliminated candidates. In a conversation with Kathimerini, Kostas Panagiopoulous, the CEO of the polling company Alcor, pointed out that 7,500 voters who had voted for Kostas Bakogiannis in the first round did not turn up for the second round, assuming that with such a large difference his position was secured. More remarkably, however, Charis Doukas, who had made a very good impression in a TV debate with Bakogiannis in the week between the two rounds, managed to pick up votes from voters on the far right and far left who might have been expected to abstain. “The number of voters for the parties which remained out of the second round was around 62,000. Out of this 62,000 Mr Doukas took 44,000 votes on the second Sunday,” he said.
Other commentators were inclined to put the blame on the Prime Minister, whose declared policy of achieving countrywide dominance may have alienated some voters. On ERT News on Monday, journalist Andreas Papadopoulos put the defeat down to Mr Mitsotakis’s “greed” – “He wants it all,” he said. In comments published in today’s Haniotika Nea, Greece’s elder stateswoman and former PASOK minister Anna Diamantopoulou was slightly more measured:
“The declared aim of ND for 13 out of 13 Regions and the repeated promotion of a blue-on-blue map was provocative (especially after what had happened in the previous two months). One party, one colour in every form of power [happens] only in China. The citizens reasserted their party independence on the second Sunday and gave the message about ‘grounding’ which the Prime Minister received, opened and read out.”