Parliamentary elections were held in

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

on 7 July 2019. The elections were called by Prime Minister

Alexis Tsipras Alexis Tsipras (, ; born 28 July 1974) is a Greek politician who served as Prime Minister of Greece from 2015 to 2019. A left-wing figure, Tsipras was leader of the List of political parties in Greece, Greek political party Syriza from 200 ...

on 26 May 2019 after the ruling

Syriza The Coalition of the Radical Left – Progressive Alliance (), best known by the syllabic abbreviation SYRIZA ( ; ; a pun on the Greek adverb , meaning "from the roots" or "radically"), is a Centre-left politics, centre-left to Left-wing politi ...

party lost the European and

local elections Local may refer to: Geography and transportation * Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand * Local, Missouri, a community in the United States Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Local'' (comics), a limited series comic book by Bria ...

. They were the first national elections since the

voting age A legal voting age is the minimum age that a person is allowed to Voting, vote in a democracy, democratic process. For General election, general elections around the world, the right to vote is restricted to adults, and most nations use 18 year ...

was lowered to 17, and the number of parliamentary constituencies was increased from 56 to 59. Athens B, the largest constituency before the 2018 reforms, with 44 seats, was broken up into smaller constituencies, the largest of which had 18 seats. The result was a

landslide victory A landslide victory is an election result in which the winning Candidate#Candidates in elections, candidate or political party, party achieves a decisive victory by an overwhelming margin, securing a very large majority of votes or seats far beyo ...

for the

centre-right Centre-right politics is the set of right-wing politics, right-wing political ideologies that lean closer to the political centre. It is commonly associated with conservatism, Christian democracy, liberal conservatism, and conservative liberalis ...

liberal conservative Liberal conservatism is a political ideology combining conservative policies with liberal stances, especially on economic issues but also on social and ethical matters, representing a brand of political conservatism strongly influenced by libe ...

New Democracy New Democracy, or the New Democratic Revolution, is a type of democracy in Marxism, based on Mao Zedong's Bloc of Four Social Classes theory in post-revolutionary China which argued originally that democracy in China would take a path that w ...

party led by

Kyriakos Mitsotakis Kyriakos Mitsotakis (, ; born 4 March 1968) is a Greek politician currently serving as the prime minister of Greece since July 2019, except for a month between May and June 2023. Mitsotakis has been president of the New Democracy (Greece), New ...

, which received nearly 40% of the vote and won 158 seats, an outright majority. This was Greece's first single-party majority government since 2009.

Electoral system

Compulsory voting Compulsory voting, also called universal civic duty voting or mandatory voting, is the requirement that registered voters participate in an election. As of January 2023, 21 countries have compulsory voting laws. Law enforcement in those countries ...

was in force for the elections, with voter registration being automatic. However, none of the legally existing penalties or sanctions have ever been enforced. A number of changes to the electoral system were introduced following the September 2015 elections. The

was reduced from 18 to 17 in July 2016, with the same law also abolishing the

majority bonus system A majority bonus system (MBS, also called a minority-friendly majoritarian system) is a mixed-member, partly-proportional electoral system that gives extra seats in a legislature to the party with a plurality or majority of seats. Typically, th ...

, which gave a 50-seat bonus to the largest party. Instead, all 300 seats would be awarded proportionally. However, this law did not come into effect for the 2019 elections, as it was not approved with the required

supermajority A supermajority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority rules in a democracy can help to prevent a majority from eroding fun ...

despite the

-led government expressing support for its introduction for the 2019 elections. As a result, the previous system remained in force, with 250 seats elected in multi-member constituencies using a 3%

electoral threshold The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of votes that a candidate or political party requires before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a legislature. This limit can operate in various ...

, plus 50 bonus seats for the largest party. The number of parliamentary constituencies was also modified in December 2018, with Athens B split into Athens B1 (North), Athens B2 (West), and Athens B3 (South), while

Attica Attica (, ''Attikḗ'' (Ancient Greek) or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the entire Athens metropolitan area, which consists of the city of Athens, the capital city, capital of Greece and the core cit ...

was split into

East Attica East Attica () is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Attica. The regional unit covers the eastern part of the urban agglomeration of Athens, and also the rural area to its east. Administration The regional unit East ...

and

West Attica West Attica () is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Attica. The regional unit covers the western part of the agglomeration of Athens, and the area to its west. Administration The regional unit West Attica is subdivi ...

Opinion polls

OpinionPollingGreeceLegislativeElection2019

Conduct

A few minutes before the polls closed, a group of young protesters stormed the 33rd polling station in the distinct of Exarcheia, Athens, and stole the ballot box. A previously-unknown

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...

group, Ballot-seeking Arsonists, later claimed responsibility. It claimed to have burned the stolen ballot box. As a result, a repeat election at the same polling station was held a week later, on 14 July. The results did not change the final allocation of seats because of the small volume of votes.

Results

2019 Greek legislative election - Municipal Units

By region

Notes

References

{{Greek elections

Parliamentary In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

Parliamentary elections in Greece