New Democracy Positioned as Greece's Second Largest Party

Even though a new national election will most likely take place in 2027, 2026 is considered by everyone a pre-election year, with the countdown clock starting to tick most likely in early September, with the prime minister’s traditional keynote speech at the Thessaloniki International Fair. It is no surprise, then, that officials of the ruling conservative New Democracy party – from leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis on down – have started meeting, and planning, for the next election or, more likely, multiple elections. The stability of the polls – showing a dominant New Democracy, but far from achieving a parliamentary majority on its own, and a dispersed opposition – cannot be taken for granted until the election, but provides the ruling party officials with a blueprint to game post-election scenarios. With a coalition government the most likely scenario, New Democracy considers the socialist PASOK the only likely partner, as the other parties, actual and potential, play the anti-system card too openly. Ideally, government officials would like PASOK to end up in third place, because this would provide a triple advantage: A third-place would be a more pliable junior partner in government and it would not risk becoming an alternative pole around which a coalition could be built, even though a scenario of a government without New Democracy seems pretty unlikely. Also, an “anti” party in second place would make New Democracy’s dilemma – stability or chaos – more credible. The choice for second place is between two parties that have not appeared yet: one led by Maria Karystianou, the activist mother of a victim in Greece’s worst-ever railway tragedy, in 2023, and one led by former prime minister Alexis Tsipras, who recently gave up his MP seat with the party, SYRIZA, that he led for 15 years.