After the historic showdown in a run-off election between Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu in Turkey, more countries are heading to the polls in Europe. The Russia-Ukraine war has impacted the whole continent, leading to economic uncertainty. Leaders have yet to come up with a way to address the energy and food crises. Besides, they have to tackle other regional geopolitical issues as well. Against this backdrop, fresh elections have been announced in two other key European countries -- one led by conservatives and the other by socialists. What will it all imply?
Greece
Since the conservative New Democracy Party of incumbent Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis failed to gain an absolute majority in the election on May 21 and could not form an alliance, Greece is heading to the polls again.
When?
The second round of voting will be held on June 25.
How does the electoral system work?
Voters will elect the members to the Greek Parliament under a proportional representation system that makes it difficult for any contender to secure an outright victory. Parties must secure at least 3% of the votes to enter a four-year term. Those who reach this threshold will share 285 parliamentary seats based on their percentage share of votes.
Twelve seats will be distributed among the state deputies elected by each party, and the remaining seats are filled by candidates elected by Greeks residing abroad.
As per recent changes in the electoral system, the leading party has to secure about 46% of the vote to win.
In the elections held on May 21, all parties failed to meet this mark including the ruling New Democracy Party. The conservative party had a 40% lead compared to the 20% of the liberal-left opposition Syriza.
The party that secures the most votes in the election will receive a 20-seat bonus if it gets more than 25% of the share. This will increase with the percentage of votes the party has secured. But the second round of the election will be contested under a slightly different system. The winning party will get a bonus of up to 50 seats.
Who are the key players?
The ruling New Democracy Party led by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who hails from a family of politicians, currently holds 158 seats in the parliament.
Mitsotakis' party has the best chance to win the second round of the elections. According to a projection by Politico, when Greece goes to the polls on June 25, New Democracy might secure 41% of the vote. In the 2019 elections, it got 39.9% of the vote.
The liberal-left Syriza party of former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was ousted by the New Democracy Party in 2019. In the May elections, the party was able to secure 20.1% of the total votes. As per Politico's research, there might be a slight fall in their vote share (20%).
What is happening right now?
The result of the election on May 21st wasn't really unexpected. There were predictions that the New Democracy Party might face some troubles because of the government's wiretapping scandal and the rail accident in February that took 57 lives. The opinion polls were clear that the race will be a close call and none of the parties would get an absolute majority. Yet, despite all of that, the ruling New Democracy Party has managed to gain double the votes of Syriza.
Even though they couldn't secure a majority, Mitsotakis and New Democracy won big mainly because of the economic progress the country witnessed during their time. After years of debt crisis, and instability, the country started to move toward positive growth. "Foreign direct investment rose last year by 50%. The Greek economy, albeit from a very low base, is currently growing at twice the eurozone average. After three bailouts totalling €280bn, international supervision of spending controls by lenders was finally ended last summer," reports the Guardian.
From the perspective of citizens, Mitsotakis steered the country through the pandemic which devastated the country's tourism industry. The country has made a post-Covid revival with growth of 5.9% in 2022. Apart from that, unemployment and inflation are also falling.
For the people, this may seem like a contrast from the regime of the Syriza Party and Tsipras, the former radical who took on Greece's EU-IMF creditors whilst in power in 2015 and nearly crashed the country out of the euro in the process. "Having enacted sweeping austerity measures between 2015 and 2019, Mr Tsípras campaigned this time round on calls for greater welfare spending and public investment. It didn’t wash... Mr Tsipras’s political future looks uncertain after what amounted to a humiliation," wrote the Guardian in an article about the Greek election.
Having a clear liberal-left ideology, Tsipras is not the favourite of voters when it comes to a conservative country like Greece. On the other hand, Mitsotakis chose to be on the fence instead of choosing sides. He straddles liberalism with his backing for LGBTQ rights in a deeply religious country, while also seeking to win over the conservative base with a tough line on migration. On the campaign trail at the border with Turkey, he vowed to extend a 37.5-kilometre (23-mile), five-metre-high steel fence to contain the inward migration flow.
What lies ahead?
The main focus of the upcoming government will be to revitalize the economy of the country. If Mitsotakis' party wins, they might take some tough decisions related to migration laws. The main focus of Mitsotakis and his party will be to make Greece an investment-friendly country. There might not be much change in the cost of living crisis that Greece is currently facing. Unlike his predecessor Tsipras, Mitsotakis maintained a friendly relationship with the EU. He has been trying to maintain peace with neighbours like Turkey.
Spain
A day after the conservative and far-right Popular Party (PP) won big in the regional and municipal polls, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced that he would dissolve parliament and call for a snap election.
When?
Spain was due to hold a general election by the end of the year but after the failure of his Spanish Socialist Workers' Party in the regional elections, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez moved up the date to July 23 following the dissolution of Parliament.
How does the electoral system work?
Spain holds an election every four years. As per LOREG, the law governing election procedure, elections will be held on the 54th day after they are announced in BOE (the official gazette). Since 1986, they have always been held on Sundays, reports El Nacional.
Voting is held for both the Congress of Deputies, the Spanish lower house, and the Senate, the upper house. The 350 members of Congress are elected by a version of proportional representation called the d'Hondt system. A party must obtain a minimum of 3% of the vote in order to qualify for parliamentary representation. Each province is alloted a minimum of two seats in Congress, and the remaining 248 seats are distributed in proportion to their populations. 208 of the 266-member Senate is elected by a plurality-at-large system. Each province is allotted four seats in the Senate, regardless of population. The remaining 57 are nominated by the parliaments of the autonomous communities, which can appoint at least one senator each and are entitled to one additional senator per every million inhabitants.
In Spain, the election campaign runs for 15 days. But, in the case of a repeat election, the campaign is reduced to eight days with the overall election period being reduced to 47 from 54. Besides, no one has permission to publish pre-poll surveys prior to five days of voting.
Who are the key players?
Sanchez's Socialist Workers' Party is one of the main players in the field. After winning a no-confidence motion against the then-ruling Popular Party (PP) in 2018 with the support of separatist and leftist parties, they came to power winning the general election in 2019, forming the first coalition government in the country's history.
The PP, even though they were ousted from power by a no-confidence motion, still managed to secure 20.8% of the vote, compared to the combined 28% of the winning coalition parties.
Vox, the far-right party, entered the Spanish Parliament for the first time after winning seats in the April 2019 general elections. Later, in the November 2019 general elections, they received 3.6 million votes making them the third-largest party in Congress in a short span of time.
What is happening right now?
Pedro Sanchez, Spain's Progressive, Socialist Prime Minister, is known for taking risks, like organizing a no-confidence motion against the ruling government while he was not even a sitting deputy. He did the same after his party did poorly in the regional and municipal elections on May 28. His socialist coalition government, also known as PSOE, has managed to only win in three of the 12 regions where the vote was held.
While the left-socialist party has secured 28.2% of the votes, the conservative PP won 31.5% of the votes, as per the Interior Ministry.
The PP won nearly all of the country's largest cities including some Socialist strongholds like Seville. However, they still failed to secure an outright majority in most cities forcing them to enter into coalitions with other far-right parties paving the way for the right to take over like in other parts of Europe.
"Spain has started a new political cycle. It's the victory of another way of doing politics," PP President Alberto Nunez told AFP.
What lies ahead?
The stakes are high for Sanchez and the EU.
Similar to the 2019 general elections, one party won't be able to secure an absolute majority in this year's general elections as well. Whether it is the Socialists or the far-right PP or Vox, they all might have to rely on coalitions to form a government. While the recent regional elections indicate that PP will get the most votes in the upcoming election, they might have to join forces with the like-minded Vox to form the government.
In an interview given to Al Jazeera, a research professor at the Institute of Political and Social Science at Barcelona's Universidad Autonoma said, "Vox is going to squeeze the PP hard. They have withstood the PP tsunami in these regional elections, so now, Vox can do what they already do with the PP in the region of Castille and Leon. They can demand to form part of the government."
Vox playing kingmaker and PP increasing their vote share might be a challenge to the Socialists. However, a large number of Spanish people are against the idea of Vox coming into power. Despite the scandals during his term, Sanchez and his government have managed to maintain a positive economy amid the inflation in Europe and the energy crisis.
The upcoming elections of Spain have ramifications for the EU as well since its Spain's turn to preside over the EU council. Before declaring the upcoming elections, Spain was supposed to take over the six-month rotating presidency of the EU Council. Since the elections were announced, Spain's Presidency had to be postponed, which in turn resulted in the delay of a series of legislations that have been piling up on the EU council's to-do list.
