ND working to avoid a Pyrrhic victory

For New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, winning a bare majority of seats in the 300-member Parliament would be no victory at all.

In fact, that result would be in a sense worse than barely failing to achieve a majority, for in that case a third election would be possible to achieve the desired result, even though politicians, pundits and the media agree that a third election, and the prolongation of uncertainty, would be unwelcome.

"To me, an overall majority - and a safe one, not a bare one, which obviously no one would want, for easily understood reasons - is a prerequisite to implementing the great changes we have committed to, fast," Mitsotakis said in an interview to state TV ERT.

For Mitsotakis, this has a personal resonance: His father, Konstantinos Mitsotakis, governed for three and a half years in the 1990s with a bare majority, and found himself...