<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;">Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said his conservative party had unleashed a “political earthquake” with a thumping win in Sunday’s election but hinted that he would seek another election in order to secure an absolute majority that would allow the party to govern alone.</span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">With most votes counted, his New Democracy party was on 40.8 percent of the votes — a 20-point lead over the left-wing Syriza party of Alexis Tsipras, which had 20.1 percent.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Despite the clear lead, projections from Greece’s interior ministry showed New Democracy falling six seats short of an outright majority in parliament, leaving Mitsotakis with the choice of building a coalition or bringing about a new ballot for a decisive result.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The 55-year-old made clear his preference.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“The citizens want a strong government with a four-year horizon,” he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Today’s political earthquake calls on all of us to speed up the process for a definitive government solution,” he added.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Tsipras also indicated a new vote was likely, saying “the electoral cycle is not over yet”.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The next battle, he said, will be “critical and final”.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">From Monday, Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou will give the top three parties — New Democracy, Syriza and the socialist PASOK — three days each in turn to form a coalition government.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If they all fail, Sakellaropoulou will appoint a caretaker government to prepare new elections about a month later.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“We have said that we want to govern outright because that would ensure stability and the way forward. So we have the right to ask the Greek people for that in the next election,” Public Order Minister Takis Theodorikakos said on Skai television shortly after polls closed Sunday evening.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The election was held under a new law of proportional representation, which makes it particularly difficult for any party to win enough parliamentary seats to form a government on its own.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If a second election is held, probably in late June or early July, the law will change again, shifting to a system that rewards the leading party with bonus seats and making it easier for the frontrunner to secure a parliamentary majority.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Political disengagement among youth</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sunday’s election is the first in Greece since its economy ceased being under strict supervision by international lenders who had provided bailout funds during the country’s nearly decade-long financial crisis.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mitsotakis, a 55-year-old Harvard-educated former banking executive and global management firm consultant, won the last election in 2019 on a promise of business-oriented reforms and has promised to continue tax cuts, boost investments and bolster middle-class employment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">His popularity took a hit following a February 28 rail disaster that killed 57 people after an intercity passenger train was accidentally put on the same rail line as an oncoming freight train. It was later revealed that train stations were poorly staffed and safety infrastructure broken and outdated.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Thousands of people, many of them university students like the railway disaster victims, staged rallies across Greek cities in protest at what they saw as negligence on the part of the government.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Still, with the economy growing at 5.9 percent in 2022, and unemployment and inflation falling, opinion polls showed the prime minister steadily ahead in the run-up to the election.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">George Tzogopoulos, lecturer at the Democritus University of Thrace, told Al Jazeera that young people were dissatisfied with the political class as a whole. “But what happened is that they didn’t show up and vote, they expressed their anger with demonstrations or through social media [instead],” he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“This is how New Democracy managed to score such an impressive success,” Tzogopoulos added.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Turnout reached 60 percent, with abstentions lower than earlier feared.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Welcoming the results, 62-year-old retiree Glykeria Tzima said: “Democracy won today — not only New Democracy, but democracy as a whole. Aljazeerz</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>