ATHENS
\nGreece votes Sunday in a general election that could deliver a chaotic outcome, with the leading candidate, conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, unlikely to garner a lead wide enough to avoid a new vote.
\nThe EU country goes into the polls in fairly robust economic health, with unemployment and inflation falling and growth this year projected to reach twice that of the bloc \u2014 a far cry from the throes of a crippling debt crisis a decade ago.
\nBut economic issues remain squarely in focus even though a post-Covid tourism revival helped Greece book growth of 5.9 percent in 2022.
\nThe outgoing prime minister has urged voters not to squander hard-fought economic stability.
\nBut his key opponent, the former leftist premier Alexis Tsipras, has warned that the rosy hard-line figures belie growing poverty as wages fail to keep pace with rising prices.
\nTsipras is seeking a comeback after a first mandate in 2015 to 2019, during which he led rocky negotiations with creditors that nearly crashed Greece out of the euro.
\nClose to 10 million Greeks are eligible to cast a ballot, including 440,000 first-time voters.
\nOpinion polls suggest that Mitsotakis enjoys a clear lead of five to seven percentage points.
\nBut the likely outcome of the vote is unpredictable, as changes to the electoral rules mean that no party is expected to obtain an outright majority.
\nWhether the party that tops the polls would seek a coalition or turn to another round of votes by early July to determine who governs Greece could depend on the size of the lead it amasses.
\nThat could spell weeks of horsetrading, with the socialist party Pasok-Kinal, led by 44-year-old Nikos Androulakis, a potential kingmaker.
\nSunday\u2019s vote marks the second national elections in which Mitsotakis, 55, a Harvard graduate and former McKinsey consultant, is pitted against Tsipras, a 48-year-old former communist and trained engineer.
\nThe outgoing premier says he has delivered on his previous electoral promises of lower taxes, tougher immigration rules and steady growth.
\n\u201cWe will continue with building a new Greece,\u201d Mitsotakis vowed at his last rally on Friday before a campaigning blackout until polls open at 7:00 am on Sunday.
\nBut Tsipras has accused Mitsotakis of promising \u201cbetter jobs and wages, only to have the middle class live on coupons.\u201d
\nCost of living and employment issues occupy many voters\u2019 minds.
\n\u201cLife, especially for young people, is very difficult. Unemployment is high, there are no work prospects and salaries vanish at the end of the month,\u201d said Athens resident Dora Vasilopoulo, 41.
\nIn Greece\u2019s second-biggest city Thessaloniki, Giorgos Antonopoulos, 39, who works at a commercial store, said \u201csalaries are used up halfway through the month and nothing is done to address this issue.
\n\u201cWe work just to survive.\u201d
\nBut Nadia Aggelopoulou, 47, a civil servant, said she believed that Mitsotakis was \u201cdoing what he can\u201d to fight inflation.
\nHis government \u201chas been excellent on all levels,\u201d she said, adding that \u201cwe don\u2019t hear lies. We\u2019re expecting salary hikes.\u201d
\nBut ahead of the vote, Mitsotakis\u2019 government has come under pressure over the devastating head-on train collision in February that claimed 57 lives.
\nThe government had initially blamed the accident on human error, even though Greece\u2019s notoriously poor rail network had been suffering from years of under-investment.
\nThe prime minister\u2019s tough stance against immigration also came under the spotlight as The New York Times this week published footage allegedly showing Greek coast guards expelling migrants by setting them adrift in the Aegean Sea.
\nThe images were described as \u201cdisturbing\u201d by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who also urged an independent inquiry.
\nA wiretap scandal that forced the resignations of the head of the intelligence service and a nephew of Mitsotakis, who was a top aide in his office, could also have an impact on the election outcome.
\nAndroulakis, the Pasol-Kinal leader, had been seen as a potential coalition partner for Mitsotakis but chances for cooperation plunged when he discovered he had been under state surveillance.
\nDuring a visit in March by a delegation of the European Parliament\u2019s committee on civil liberties, MEP Sophie in \u2018t Veld said there were \u201cvery serious threats to the rule of law and fundamental rights\u201d in Greece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ATHENS Greece votes Sunday in a general election that could deliver a chaotic outcome, with the leading candidate, conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, unlikely to garner a lead wide enough to avoid a new vote. The EU country goes into the polls in fairly robust economic health, with unemployment and inflation falling and growth this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332671,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-332641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n