Mitsotakis seen on way to surprise win in New Democracy leadership vote

Former administrative reform minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was seen springing a surprise by winning Sunday’s vote for the New Democracy leadership.

With around half of the votes counted, Mitsotakis had just edged ahead of his rival Evangelos Meimarakis, who led the party briefly between July and November. Mitsotakis was expected to dominate in Attica, securing him the presidency of the party despite the fact that he trailed Meimarakis by more than 10 percentage points in the first round.

Central Macedonia Governor Apostolos Tzitzicostas jumped the gun by congratulating Mitsotakis at around 9 p.m., a few hours before the final results were expected.

Some polling stations remained open past the 7 p.m. deadline to accommodate people who were queuing to vote.

It was estimated that around 320,000 people, or around 80 percent of those who voted in the first round last month, devoted part of their Sunday to have a say in who will lead the main opposition party.

There appeared to be no technical problems with the voting process. The only incident of note during Sunday’s election was members of the anarchist group Rouvikonas (Rubicon) raiding a polling station in the Athens suburb of Nea Philadelphi and destroying ballot papers. There were no injuries or arrests.