Leaders | Carry on Kyriakos

A stunning election result for Greece’s prime minister

Kyriakos Mitsotakis deserves his unexpected triumph

Greek Prime Minister and New Democracy conservative party leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis speaks outside the party's headquarters, after the general election, in Athens, Greece, May 21, 2023. REUTERS/Stelios Misinas — Image: Reuters

May 25th 2023

There is beating your political opponent, there is trouncing him, and then there is what Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece’s prime minister, did on May 21st to Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the radical-left Syriza party. Syriza ran the country from 2015 to 2019, a time when Greece came close to defaulting on its debts, crashing out of the euro and threatening the stability of the entire euro zone. Mr Mitsotakis then took over. Now Greek voters have decided, by a whopping margin, that they prefer stability and technocratic competence to drama.

This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “Carry on Kyriakos”