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‘People gave us a strong mandate to change Greece. We will honour it to the full’
Greece’s new conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was sworn in on Monday after a sweeping election victory put him in charge of the EU’s most indebted member with promises to end a decade of economic crisis. “The Greek people gave us a strong mandate to change Greece. We will honour it to the full,” the 51-year-old Harvard graduate and former McKinsey consultant said after taking his oath of office in a televised ceremony, his wife and three children close by. “Hard work begins today. I am completely confident that we will prove equal to the challenge.” Mr. Mitsotakis later named a Cabinet with many technocrats in junior posts and only a handful of women. The U.S.-educated conservative faces a hefty challenge as he takes over from leftist premier Alexis Tsipras, who imposed austerity measures required under a bailout to keep Greece in the eurozone. The country’s public debt last year stood at €335 billion, or 180% of GDP. The debt load is forecast to fall to 168% of GDP this year, but only throught belt-tightening brought in under Mr. Tsipras’s Syriza party, policies which Mr. Mitsotakis’s New Democracy party says is stifling growth.
Poll pledges
The tricky job of keeping Greece’s international creditors onside while easing the hardship on Greeks — by lowering taxes and renegotiating fiscal targets — could result in a short honeymoon phase for Mr. Mitsotakis.
He has pledged to create jobs and “steamroller” obstacles to business. Those pledges wooed voters, who handed him 40% of the votes in Sunday’s election, well ahead of the 31.5% given to Mr. Tsipras. “It’s a strong message for change,” Mr. Mitsotakis said on Sunday. His party will have a majority of 158 seats in the 300-member Parliament. New Democracy was last in power in 2014, in coalition with the Greek socialists. Syriza’s parliamentary presence will shrink from 144 seats to 86. Mr. Tsipras has promised to remain an “active” voice in Opposition in defence of labour rights.
Entering Parliament for the first time are Greek Solution, a nationalist party formed by TV salesman Kyriakos Velopoulos, and MeRA25, an anti-austerity party founded by economist and former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis. Neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn was shut out of parliament for the first time since 2012.
