Greek exit polls forecast landslide win for PM’s conservative party

ATHENS, Greece — An exit poll from Greece’s second election in five weeks indicates the conservative New Democracy party has won by a landslide, gaining enough parliamentary seats to form a government for a second four-year term.

The poll projects Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ party gaining 40-44% of the vote, with his main rival, the left-wing Syriza party suffering a crushing defeat with just 16-19% projected support, even worse than his 20% in the last elections in May.

Today’s vote comes just over a week after a migrant ship capsized and sank off the western coast of Greece, leaving hundreds of people dead and missing, and calling into question the actions of Greek authorities and the country’s strict migration policy. But the disaster, one of the worst in the Mediterranean Sea in recent years, did not affect the election, with domestic economic issues at the forefront of voters’ minds.

The exit poll projects Mitsotakis’ party will win a comfortable majority of Parliament’s 300 seats, allowing him to form a stable government, thanks to a change in the electoral law that grants the winning party bonus seats. The previous election in May, conducted under a proportional representation system, left him five seats short of a majority despite winning 41% of the vote.