The center-right New Democracy (ND) party has secured a landslide victory in Greek elections, receiving approximately 40% of the vote to the ruling Syriza’s 31.5%, according to preliminary results.

ND is portraying the victory as the end of a contentious era in Greek politics, one that saw the country teetering on the brink financial collapse, amid massive bailouts and the threat of a ‘Grexit.’ But newly minted Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis may soon discover that all of the financial and political constraints that stymied his predecessor won’t be disappearing anytime soon.

Background

Why is this election important?

It is a symbol marking the end of an extremely difficult era of Greek politics. The Greek sovereign debt crisis has been well-covered on this site and elsewhere; its human cost has been enormous, exacted almost entirely from the most vulnerable Greeks – pensioners, the unemployed, and the economic precariat. Outgoing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his Syriza party were born of the crucible of this period. Syriza began as a coalition of radical left parties; at the onset of its electoral surge in early 2015, it was widely feared as a vehicle for pulling Greece out of the European Union, though you’d be forgiven for not remembering its origins given the moderate tilt that Syriza displayed during most of its time in office. The party famously called a referendum on the austerity restrictions imposed as part of the troika’s third bailout agreement in June 2015, won it (voters overwhelmingly rejected the bailout terms), and then ultimately ignored the will of the people and accepted even harsher terms a month later.

The accepted terms, combined with Greece’s total reliance on troika financing to service its debts, left Syriza’s political agenda starved of oxygen. This election, held just months after Greece’s long-awaited return to international debt markets, was meant to be Greece’s coming out party as a ‘normal’ member of Europe.