Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who won the Greek legislative election by a wide margin this Sunday, is a conservative who advocates restarting the economy after the financial crisis but has also been accused of serious attacks on the rule of law.
The leader of the New Democracy (ND), prime minister from 2019 until the end of May this year, is expected to return to head of the Greek government, with his party receiving an absolute majority of 158 votes out of 300 parliamentary mandates when 97% of the votes are counted.
On the campaign trail, the 55-year-old politician, who is close to Manfred Weber, the German leader of the European People’s Party (EPP), promised a pay rise while the high cost of living and low incomes remain top concerns for Greek citizens.
Mitsotakis also promised a massive recruitment effort for the public health sector, which has been hit by a woeful lack of funds since the crisis.
His first term marked the restart of an economy that was still recovering when he took office in 2019, after years of tough austerity plans in which the country lost a quarter of its gross domestic product (GDP).
Growth hit 5.9% last year, but in March of this year, Mitsotakis faced an unprecedented wave of uprising since coming to power, following a railroad crash that killed 57 people and caused serious system failures. net.
His arrogance was pointed out by his opponents, starting with the leader of SYRIZA (left), former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who comes from a large political family and owner of large real estate.
Over the past four years, Mitsotakis has reformed the security system, in particular by strengthening the country’s police apparatus.
His tenure was also marked by scandals, one of which was a major one involving the illegal wiretapping of politicians and journalists with the Predator spyware.
Omnipresent on social media, he has implemented an aggressive communications policy in a social communications landscape characterized by a concentration of major publications and television stations in the hands of major financial groups.
He also faces repeated accusations of repatriating migrants to neighboring Turkey before they can submit their asylum claims in the European Union.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis has always denied such practices, as evidenced by videos and extensive interviews with major international media outlets.
“If he got away with it, it’s because of a new form of populism. […] no offensive rhetoric, no eccentricity, no fanfare,” like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban or former US President Donald Trump, the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung recently wrote.
After the fatal sinking of a ship carrying hundreds of migrants off the Peloponnese on June 14, Mitsotakis came to the defense of the Greek Coast Guard, which non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and survivors accused of being slow to intervene.
He also advocated a “fair but tough” migration policy and promised to expand the “anti-migrant wall” erected on the Greek-Turkish land border in the spring.
The four years in power have also been marked by setbacks in the areas of the rule of law and freedom of the press, to the point that Greece has been ranked last in the European Union (EU) in the NGO Reporters’ annual rankings since last year. Without borders, beyond Hungary and Poland.
Hailing from a Cretan political dynasty, Kyriakos Mitsotakis is the son of former Prime Minister Konstantinos Mitsotakis (1990–1993); her sister was foreign minister; one of the nephews is the current mayor of Athens and the other was his close advisor until 2022.
A graduate of American universities Harvard and Stanford, Mitsotakis made a career as a financial consultant in London, namely McKinsey, before taking on a political role in the family.
Member of the ND for the first time in 2004, he was the Minister of Administrative Reform at the height of the crisis, then carried out massive layoffs in public administration.
In 2016, a year after the defeat of his political camp against the left of Alexis Tsipras, he was elected leader of the New Democracy, and three years later he became head of government.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
I am Michael Melvin, an experienced news writer with a passion for uncovering stories and bringing them to the public. I have been working in the news industry for over five years now, and my work has been published on multiple websites. As an author at 24 News Reporters, I cover world section of current events stories that are both informative and captivating to read.