ATHENS: Right-wing outgoing Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is the favorite in Sunday’s general election in Greece, but the outcome could force him to hold a new ballot in the absence of a stable majority.

Opposite him, left-wing Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras wants to take over the reins of the country after an initial 2015-2019 term marked by a standoff with the European Union and then capitulation during stormy negotiations to save Greece. financial crisis .

Polling stations opened at 7 a.m. local time (4 a.m. GMT). The exit polls will be released when polling stations close at 19:00 local time (16:00 GMT).

The election campaign, seen as sluggish, ended on Friday night when 55-year-old Kyriakos Mitsotakis, at the foot of Acropolis Hill, begged voters for a new four-year term to continue building a “new Greece”.

At the same time, his rival Alexis Tsipras on Sunday predicted the end of the “nightmare” and accused the government of pursuing economic policies that lead “the middle class to live on food stamps”.

The polls have given the conservative leader of the New Democracy (ND) a comfortable lead of between 5 and 7 points for months.

-Mitsotakis, omnipresent on TV–

According to a poll by Arco on Thursday, 32.7% of voting intentions are attributed to ND and 26% to Syriza. In third place, the socialist party Pasok-Kinal won 8.3% of the vote.

But such a score for the rights would not allow her to rule alone. But Kyriakos Mitsotakis ruled out forming a coalition in a country whose political culture is not based on compromise.

Alexis Tsipras, 48, has already yelled at Pasok-Kinal leader Nikos Androulakis, but the latter has made demands.

Should it not be possible to form a government team, which many analysts are predicting, a new vote will have to take place in late June or early July.

On a polling trip from Crete to the Turkish border, Mr Mitsotakis, omnipresent on TV, never stopped flaunting his economic record.

Falling unemployment, growth of almost 6% in the last year, return of investments and boom in tourism: the economy has picked up speed again after years of acute crisis and European rescue plans.

But declining purchasing power and difficulties in making ends meet remain the top concerns of a population that has made painful sacrifices over the past decade.

Many Greeks have to make do with low wages and, after drastic diets to lose weight, have lost faith in drastically cut public services.

The country still suffers from a public debt of more than 170% of its GDP.

“Life, especially for young people, is very difficult,” laments Dora Vassilopoulo, a 41-year-old Athenian, citing “high unemployment, lack of job prospects and wages that melt in the middle of the month.”

wiretapping scandal

“It’s getting worse and worse. We just work to survive,” adds Giorgos Antonopoulos, 39, who works in a shop in Thessaloniki, the country’s second largest city.

At the end of February, the train disaster that killed 57 people sparked the anger that has plagued Greece since the crisis and sparked demonstrations against the conservative government, accused of neglecting rail safety.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, son of a former prime minister, has also been blamed for a scandal involving illegal phone taps targeting politicians and journalists.

According to Dutch MEP Sophie in’t Veld, in March the European Parliament denounced “serious threats to the rule of law and fundamental rights” in Greece.

Greece, which comes last in the EU in terms of press freedom in Reporters Without Borders’ annual ranking, is also regularly accused of turning migrants back into Turkey.

On Friday, the New York Times published a video testifying to such illegal practices, which Athens vehemently denies.