The first round of presidential elections in Greece is scheduled for January 25, with more rounds to follow. But the winner already seems clear: Konstantinos Taboulas, a member of the conservative New Democracy party, who until a few days ago was parliament speaker.
Tasosula will need four rounds to garner enough votes from MPs to win the election. This is because the right-wing conservative candidate lacks the bipartisan appetite to secure the necessary two-thirds majority in parliament, or 200 of the 300 available votes, to win in the first round.
In 2020, the current Greek President, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, swept through the election with 261 votes. In contrast, the Taboo-Solas would not allow the BE to gather the required 180 votes in the third presidential election round – a provision that the Greek junta dictator had abolished in 1974. In just the election cycle, thanks to a constitutional amendment. 2019, a ruling majority of 151 Parliamentarians would suffice.
This would make Tsoula the first Greek president to hold the highest office of state, a largely ceremonial position, without the approval of at least one of the major opposition parties. It seems likely that only a few members of the Spartans, a far-right party that reports to the now banned right-wing extremist Golden Dawn party, will support Tassoulas, a prospect he is not too happy about.
three opposing candidates
Already, Tabosolas, 65, is the first candidate to defeat multiple opposing candidates. So far, Greece has seen more consensus than competition during presidential elections.
When Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced on 15 January what many perceived as a partisan candidacy for parliamentary speaker, the social-democratic Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) nominated: completing the pension reforms of the early 2000s. Pre-labor blank to do.
The center-left Syriza party, or 2023 as it was abandoned after a split, tapped its own candidate: Luka Katseli, who served as economy minister under the previous Pasok-led administration. In 2011, in the throes of the Eurozone debt crisis, he made a name for himself as a defender of small debt holders against Big Bank seizures.
Finally, the new ultraconservative party Niki, or Victory, has put forward a candidate: little-known lawyer Kostas Kyriakos. Niki party leader Dimitris Natsios once called Kiriakou “a heroic political prisoner of Enver Hoxha’s regime in Albania”.
Parties know that their candidates have a chance of winning the election. Ultimately, Tassolas of the New Democracy Party will most likely be sued.
a swing to the right
By tapping Tabolas, Prime Minister Mitsotakis has broken with 50 years of political tradition. So far, conservative administrations have proposed progressive presidential candidates, and vice versa.
Five years ago, Mitsotakis nominated a woman, the progressive Sakellaropoulou, another political first to state office. At the time, she was serving as president of the Council of State, Greece’s highest administrative court.
Sakellaropoulou Ampriuning won the first presidential election round, and many expected that she could easily remain in office for another five years this time. She has been a reserved and widely respected president, and it seems likely she would be re-elected with another easy margin.
Therefore, the remaining questions are why Mitsotakis did not propose him this time and why the head of government did not look for a more unified candidate.
The answer is that Sakellaropoulou was not popular with the right wing of the government. To the more conservative forces within the New Democracy Party, she was too “woke,” too liberal and too open toward minorities and alternative lifestyles. For example, in 2024, she has publicly supported Greece introducing a seed sex margin.
Mitsotakis did not propose Sakellaropoulou for a second term in order not to antagonize his right-wing representatives. Instead of nominating him or any other progressive politician, they chose the conservative Taboulas.
If anything, Mitsotakis feels threatened by the right, which sees him as a liberal reformer.
To the left of the New Democracy Party, opposition parties are weak and fragmented, while parties on the right are gaining strength. In the European parliamentary elections in 2024, right-wing populist and far-right extremist parties gathered about 20% of the vote, and they are only expected to grow stronger.
So far, no strong personality seems to have emerged in Greece’s right-wing circles who, as in the case of Italy or France, would be attractive enough against the voter base. However, the search for a candidate can arise at any time and gather support.
Adapting to a new zeitgeist
A right-wing leading man will be supported by other strongmen in this new Trump era. While Elon Musk has yet to anoint a Greek politician as the “savior of the nation,” many far-right extremists in Athens are certainly dreaming of the possibility.
In Mitsotakis’s political circle, there is a common understanding that the new zeitgeist is a hard swing to the right. And proposing a conservative candidate like Taboulas as president sits quite well with him, saying he is comfortable with the party wing.
Tabosoulas began his political career as personal secretary to Evangelos Averof, who led the New Democracy party between 1981 and 1984. Hey, Kya was elected to Parliament for the first time in 2000 and served as Culture Minister and Deputy Defense Minister, among other things, before becoming Speaker in 2019.
Greece’s projected next president is well-educated and has a sense of humor. But his most important characteristic is his loyalty to his party and its leader.
This article was originally in German.
